


The Bet

by ShellSea12



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Abused Harry, Alternate Universe - High School, I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, M/M, Not my story, Only posting this because the author took it off of wattpad, Please look at the link to tumblr if you want to congratulate anyone!!!!!, Popular Liam, Popular Louis, Popular Zayn, Social Butterfly Niall, Took this off of tumblr not my story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 61,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6173497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShellSea12/pseuds/ShellSea12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: When Louis bets Zayn that he can make anyone fall in love with him in under a month, he doesn’t expect Zayn to pick loner Harry Styles as the challenge. Larry Stylinson AU COMPLETE</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“Who could you possibly be texting right now? It’s like, 2am,” Zayn said to Louis, who was tapping on his iPhone. 

Louis looked up at Zayn, who was looking half dead in his chair, eyes lidded with sleep and his face relaxed. Honestly, Louis wasn’t even sure why they were in class this early on a Monday morning. The room was almost completely empty, with 10 minutes until class started. He grinned.

“It’s 7:40 in the morning, mate. Not exactly 2am. And I’m not texting. Deleting texts, actually. Laura won’t stop messaging me, hasn’t given up since yesterday morning.” He leaned over to show Zayn the ridiculous messages the girl Laura had been sending him ever since they’d hooked up at a party on Saturday night.

Zayn barely spared the texts a glance as he snorted. “Stage 5 clinger?" 

"You’ve no idea. I have half a mind to tell her I was just drunk and I’m actually gay, just to get her off my back.”

Zayn laughed. “It’d never work. You’ve hooked up with too many girls. God knows why they like you so much,” he teased. 

Louis’ jaw dropped as he gasped in mock offense. “I would’ve thought that’d be obvious, Malik. It’s clearly my affinity for rom-coms - the minute I start quoting them all inhibitions fly out the window.”

“Ha ha,” said Zayn, rolling his eyes. “Seriously though, why do you always have bitches lined up when they know they’ll never be anything more than a hook-up?”

“The charm, mate. It’s everything. I could make anyone fall in love with me, all I need is the charm.”

As these words registered in Zayn’s mind, a wicked idea began to form. He was glad Liam wasn’t in this class with them to talk him out of it.

“Anyone, you say?” Zayn asked. Louis was oblivious to his suddenly overly casual manner.

“Definitely.”

“Would you be willing to place a bet on that?”

“Sure, but you’d lose. Think you can handle it? You realize I’d get money and gloating rights, right?" 

Zayn rolled his eyes again. "Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Tommo. You have to win first." 

Louis grinned a truly shit-eating grin. "Name your terms, Zaney-boy. Whose pants do you want me to charm off? 100 pounds says I can do it in a month.”

“You’re on, mate,” Zayn said.

“One rule though,” Louis said quickly, “Don’t make it someone completely unreasonable. Like, no teachers or adults. Don’t be creepy.”

Zayn laughed. “Agreed, no creepiness. Let’s shake on it.”

They shook hands. No backing down. Now all Zayn needed to do was name the person.

Zayn thought for a moment. Who should it be? He wasn’t about to make it easy for Louis. Zayn needed that 100 pounds. His eyes glided around the slowly filling up room, searching for the right person.

Suddenly, about 10 seconds after the bell rang, Harry Styles stumbled into the room looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, curly hair flying everywhere and skin flushed like he’d sprinted to class. Mumbling an apology to the teacher, he shyly made his way over to his seat next to a blonde Irish kid named Niall. 

Zayn watched Niall say something to Harry, and Harry reply tiredly. Harry let his head rest on his arms on his desk, apparently too tired to keep it up. Niall patted his shoulder.

Zayn considered them. Louis, Liam and himself were considered popular in their school, and none had ever spoken to either Niall or Harry. He knew the loud Irish lad had friends through football as he was on the school team, but as far as he knew, Niall was Harry’s only friend. Harry was quiet and tended to keep to himself. He seemed to have trouble connecting to people.

No one in their school seemed to really, honestly know Harry Styles. He had moved to their town, Doncaster, about two years previously and had only made one friend. Nothing about the boy’s outward appearance gave any indication that he was a social misfit. His friendship with Niall was like the only connection he had with his classmates. Harry Styles was an enigma, and he was not normal. He was a challenge.

As he stared at the pair and realized this, a dirty smirk twisted its way onto Zayn’s face. Harry Styles. He would be the perfect person to be in the bet.

Louis noticed the filthy grin on Zayn’s face and was instantly apprehensive. “What’s that look on your face for?” He asked somewhat nervously.

Zayn’s smirk grew into a full blown evil grin. “I think I’ve found a subject to be in the bet." 

Louis beamed. "And who might the lucky winner be?” He asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

“Harry Styles.”


	2. Chapter 1

“LIAM!” Louis’ voice rang out through the cafeteria, causing almost every head in the room to turn his way. Ignoring the stares, he simply made a beeline towards where Liam was already sitting and eating.

“ZAYN IS SLOWLY BUT SURELY TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE,” he continued, much to the distressed ears of his classmates. He caught sight of Liam’s raised eyebrows as he walked over.

When Louis arrived at the table, he plopped down across from his friend. Stealing the sandwich from Liam’s fingers, Louis fixed him with a pouty stare as he stuffed the sandwich into his mouth.

Liam stared at him for a few moments before sighing. “Fine, I’ll bite. How is Zayn ruining your life this time?” 

“Spreading lies again, are we Lou?” Zayn’s voice interrupted them as the tanned boy slid onto the bench next to Liam.

Louis stuck out his tongue childishly at Zayn. “It is the perfect truth. And you know it.”

Liam turned to Zayn. “Care to fill me in on what’s going on?”

Zayn smirked. “Me and Tommo here have just made a bet.” 

“Oh for Gods sake, not another bet,” Liam groaned, burying his face in his hands. “What is it this time?”

“Well, Louis was saying how he can get anyone to fall in love with him in a month. And I made it into a bet. So, I chose a person for Boo Bear to seduce.”

Liam stared. “…..who’s the girl?” he asked nervously.

“It’s not even a girl!” Louis cried dramatically. “It’s Harry Styles!”

Liam’s eyebrows shot up as he turned to look questioningly at Zayn. Zayn shrugged.

“Sex wasn’t specified beforehand and it’s not like I’m going to make it easy on him, am I? 100 pounds are at stake here. And I can’t lose 100 pounds. Or my dignity.”

“Forget dignity, you guys, this is just plain wrong,” Liam said. “Purposefully playing with someone’s emotions and leading them on like that when you don’t feel the same way… Especially with someone like Harry Styles.”

Louis was taken aback. “What do you mean, ‘especially Harry Styles’? He seems relatively normal to me. No uncontrollable explosions of emotion from him that I know about, at any rate.”

Zayn snorted, but Liam was still completely serious. “Thats not what I meant,” he said, half-playfully hitting Louis’ shoulder. “I’m talking about people who don’t have a lot of people to turn to and boost them back up. Harry’s got what, one, maybe two friends? It’s just not right.”

Zayn was confused. “So you’re saying it would be okay if we did it on someone else?”

Louis perked up at this, hoping half-heartedly that Liam would proclaim working on Harry an absolute no and force Zayn to choose a nice girl for Louis to seduce. Unfortunately, fortune was just not on his side that day. 

“No, I’m saying it would be wrong in any capacity-” Liam began to say, when Zayn cut him off.

“Brilliant!” Zayn exclaimed. “If it’s unethical either way, it doesn’t matter whether or not we keep Harry as the subject. Sorry Lou,” he added as an afterthought.

Louis nodded. If he was honest, he’d kind of expected as much.  
He couldn’t deny that the bet would be weird for him, though. He wondered how in the hell he’d be able to pull this off.

Louis hadn’t been lying when he told Zayn that it was exceptionally easy to get girls to fall for him. He himself didn’t even understand his own appeal, but as long as it got him girls he didn’t particularly care. 

But with Harry, Louis had virtually no idea how he was supposed to seduce the other boy. For one, Louis had never spoken to the boy a day in his life. He had an idea that it might be a tad awkward to suddenly try to insert himself romantically into Harry’s life. And by a tad awkward, he meant that cringe-inducing levels of awkwardness would be achieved. 

Another problem- Louis didn’t even know if Harry liked boys. He spared a moment to consider his own sexuality. He wouldn’t deny that in his life he had thought some boys were atteactive, but he had never given it too much thought. He decided to keep to that tactic, and pushed the whole issue to the back of his mind, to be examined on a later day.

As Liam and Zayn lasped into a conversation about the finer points of seducing unsuspecting targets, Louis let his eyes drift across the cafeteria in search of the infamous Harry Styles.

——

“Hey Harry!” Niall said as he dropped his overflowing tray of food on the table, milk sloshing over the side of the carton and peas rolling off his plate.

Harry smiled slightly at Niall. “Hi,” he greeted simply. “Got enough to eat?” 

“I think so, I might have to go back for seconds though, they’re making-” It took Niall a few seconds to realize Harry was joking.

Harry hid a smile as he snorted softly. Niall grinned good naturedly. “Harry, Harry. You realize there will never be enough food, right?”

Harry rolled his eyes, not even bothering to answer Niall. He picked at his fries absently, far off in his thoughts.

He looked up when he realized Niall was speaking. “What?”

“I said, so what exactly did you do to piss off Louis Tomlinson?”

“What?” Harry repeated, confused. 

“He’s been staring at you all day, man. First during math this morning, and now he’s been looking at you all lunch. So, whatdja do?”

Harry just stared at Niall. Was he completely insane? 

“I think you’re imagining things. I’ve never even spoken to him, let alone given him any reason to pay attention to me,” Harry said.

Niall raised his eyebrows, digging into his food. “Then explain to me why he’s staring at you right now.”

Harry very obviously turned around in his seat, eyes searching for Louis Tomlinson. His eyes found the other boy with his two ever-present friends, Zayn Malik and Liam Payne. 

Niall was right. Louis’ eyes were boring directly into his, and they seemed to be trying to figure something out.

Harry quickly turned back around in his seat again, fighting down a blush.

Niall laughed and rolled his eyes. “Nice one Harry. Real subtle. You are truly the master of being smooth.” 

“Shut it,” Harry mumbled. His ears felt hot. He was burning with embarrassment at being caught so blatantly seeking out the other boy to stare at him. Sure, Louis had been looking, but Harry had clearly had the intention of staring at him.

Harry honestly had no clue why the other boy was giving him such attention, if what Niall was saying was indeed true. If he was honest, it made him a bit apprehensive. Louis and his friends didn’t pay attention to people who weren’t their friends unless they had a reason to. Harry wasn’t too sure if he was too fond of the possibility of being one of those ‘reasons’.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the other boy…. Actually, that’s exactly what it was. Harry didn’t like it. Not one bit.

——

Louis rubbed the back of his head frustratedly, finding Harry in the cafeteria. He decided to take an actual full inventory of the other boy.

The first thing that Louis noticed about Harry (the first thing that everyone noticed) was his hair. The boy had long, luxurious brown curly hair. Louis wouldn’t lie, it looked incredibly soft. He wondered what it would feel like to touch. He figured he’d be finding that out soon enough.

Next were his eyes. The boy had clear, deep green eyes. They were actually quite beautiful. 

When he thought about, Louis realized that he’d never actually seen Harry smile. Or laugh. Or heard him talk. Louis hoped that he didn’t have one of those high, girly voices.

Louis conveniently and temporarily forgot that he himself had a high voice. But, that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, Louis came to the conclusion that Harry Styles was actually not that bad looking. Understandably, this was a realization that was accompanied by copious amounts of relief. After all, if Louis was putting his sexuality and reputation on the line for some guy, he at least wanted it to be worth it.

He watched as Harry said something to Niall, who he was sitting with, and got up to throw something out. He noted with appreciation that Harry’s body was long and lean. The boy evidently knew how to dress himself well, too. 

With that pleasant deduction, Louis finished up his creeping on Harry and tuned back in to Liam and Zayn’s conversation.

“No Liam, you’re the one that’s gettin it wrong! It’s ‘Stop! Don’t touch me there, this is my private square,’ not ‘Stop, please touch me there, this is my pleasure square’! That’s just creepy, man!”

Louis stared. “Are you guys seriously arguing over the lyrics to the Protection song? The words are clearly don’t touch me there. Liam I hate to break it to you, but in this case you’re the one that would get seriously unlucky and Zayn wouldn’t. Zayn knows the words.”

“I’m offended!” Liam cried. Zayn laughed.

“Not our fault you don’t know the rape song.” He turned to Louis. “So Lou, any ideas on how to woo Harry?”

Louis groaned. “Nope. You?”

Zayn held his hands up. “No way am I helping you. I wanna win this.”

Louis looked to Liam with puppy dog eyes. “Any ideas?” After being so adamantly against the whole idea, Louis wasn’t sure if Liam would help him. Although evidently, the need to help people (in this case, Louis) was overpowering Liam’s misgivings about the whole thing.

Liam looked stumped for a minute, ignoring Zayn’s whispered “Don’t help him!”

“You could start off by saying hi to him in the hallway, maybe,” Liam suggested after a while.

“That is the single most lamest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Louis said.

Liam was once again, offended. “I don’t see you having any other ideas!”

Louis sighed. Liam was right. Unless something better came up, he was going to have to take this the horrible way. Yay for slow and awkward beginnings.

The bell rang, signalling the end of lunch. Louis and Zayn went off to chem while Liam headed off to AP English. Louis seriously needed to think of a plan, and fast.


	3. Chapter 2

Louis and Zayn made their way down the hallway, saying hi to friends on the way. Louis voiced something to Zayn that had been bothering him.

“So Zayn, are you sure you’re going to be completely ruthless about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know. You’re refusing to help at all, and I mean come on. It’s a little unfair.”

“How exactly is this unfair?” Zayn asked incredulouly, nodding to a friend as they passed. “We have a bet, Lou. I’m not supposed to help you at all. In fact, I’m supposed to be trying to sabotage you at every given opportunity.”

Louis nodded. “I’m quite aware. But really Zayn. I have to SEDUCE A GUY. You could at least have a little sympathy.”

Louis could see Zayn cracking a little, but still sticking to his guns.

“A bet’s a bet,” he replied after a few moments.

Louis sighed, knowing he’d get nowhere at that moment. He would have to work on Zayn over a period of time before the other lad agreed to not be so harsh on him during the bet. It would be hard enough seducing a guy without Zayn interfering every other second. Which he would without a doubt do.

All of a sudden, Louis caught sight of a mop of truly rambunctious curls heading his way and a flip of his stomach told him that his eyes were correct: Harry Styles was walking in the opposite direction than him and Zayn, and would pass them soon.

Zayn raised a brow at Louis’ minor heart attack and sighed. “What is it this time?”

“Harry, 12 o’clock,” he whispered. Zayn groaned.

“Please tell me we aren’t returning to clock code to locate people again. That was a phase that went on for way too long.”

But Louis wasn’t listening to Zayn. He was too busy trying to figure out what to do when he passed Harry. Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind was Liam’s pathetic suggestion of saying hi in the hallway.

As Harry approached, Louis prepared himself by placing an extra large grin on his face. In fact, the grin was so big that it was probably freaking some people out. It actually hurt him to smile this wide.

As Harry passed by, Louis looked directly at Harry with his creepy grin and said, “Hi, Harry!”

He was not prepared for the mildly horrified look Harry shot him before hurrying off without uttering a word in response.

Louis felt his cheeks flush bright red as he wondered what in the hell he had just done.

Zayn burst into uncontrollable laughter, slapping Louis on the back. “Bask in the awkwardness,” he choked out between snorts. “Soak it all in, Lou. That was priceless.” 

Louis buried his face in his hands as they walked, crashing into several people. “I honestly have no idea what just possessed me to do that. What the hell is wrong with me?! I need to text Liam and yell at him, this is all his fault.”

He fished his phone out of his pocket while Zayn’s loud laugh faded into relentless giggles.

“You sound like a baby unicorn,” Louis said grumpily to Zayn, who completely ignored him.

Louis typed out an angry message to Liam and sent it. He tried not to think about what be had just done.

To: Liam

Took your advice, said hi to Harry. He officially thinks I’m a grade A freak now. Cheers. -Lou

To: Louis

Not my fault u dint make it less creepy, its wat I wudv done anywy. -Liam

To: Liam

Yeah, but you have the innocent puppy dog face to help you get away with creepy shit! Ah, shit. - Lou

Louis turned to Zayn who had finally managed to stifle his giggles. “This is great. Harry now thinks I am the single creepiest person on the face of the planet. What am I supposed to do now?”

Zayn sighed, letting out one last chuckle. “I suppose I could help you out a little… But you do realize this upsets the odds, right?”

Louis nodded. “Now if I win, you only have to pay me 50 pounds. I’ll give you 120 if you win.”

Zayn nodded. “Normally I’d never do this, but that was so bad that I’ll make an exception just this once.”

They arrived at their chem classroom. Upon walking into the room, they discovered that they had a test that both of them had forgotten about. Oh, well. Life isn’t all about chem, you know.

Louis took the grand opportunity to place down bullshit answers to everything on his test and hand it in during the first five minute of class. Ignoring the exasperated sigh of his teacher, he went back to his seat and proceeeded to text Liam for advice. 

Louis honestly didn’t know what was wrong with him. Why was he failing at this? He was supposed to be smooth, damnit! 

He managed to get some advice from Liam when the lad finally texted back. That boy was too invested in his edcation for his own good.

Liam had suggested that Louis just try to be friends with Harry first, instead of going straight to flirting. They figured flirting would scare Harry off even more, seeing how he already thought Louis was a total creep. Life wasn’t exactly smiling down at Louis right now.

To make matters worse, he couldn’t stop replaying the horrible moment in his mind. Harry’s shocked face told him one thing: Zayn was in a good place to win this bet right around now. 

After chem, Louis and Zayn headed downstairs to social studies. Social studies was one of Louis’ favorite classes. Not because of the subject, god no Louis hated histoy. Rather it was the teacher that made the class, as is usually the case. Ms. Henney was the much-loved history teacher, with curly red hair and bright blue eyes. She was young, kind and funny and always gave Louis extensions on his work.

However lately she had been very stressed, as she was getting married in a week. There was much to do for a wedding. Louis was glad he didn’t have to plan any weddings- it seemed a right nightmare.

On the way to class, Louis had yet another minor heart attack when he realized that Harry was in that class with them.

“Zayn, I’m not sure I can face Harry so soon after The Mistake. Perhaps in 10 years I’ll be able to forget about it?”

Zayn shot him a look. “Louis, chill. You’re fine. It’s just a dude, right? You never get this flustered over a girl, so what’s the problem? Anyway, you’ll have to see him sooner rather than later anyway because of the bet. Unless you’re forfeiting?” Zayn finished in a question, eyeing Louis.

Louis shook his head very fast. “Not giving up. Just nervous. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not trying to seduce a girl. It’s a guy this time. Girls and guys are very different, I’ll have you know.”

“I know. No need to get your knickers in a twist, my dear.”

By this time, they had reached the classroom and walked inside. Louis’ eyes immediately sought out Harry, who kept his own eyes studiously on his desk. 

Louis heaved a sigh and trudged over to his and Zayn’s seats. Honestly, this was his life.

Instead of Ms. Henney sitting at the desk at the front, it was a substitute teacher Louis noted with disappointment. Seeing Ms Henney was one of the high points of his day.

Louis sat next to Zayn in silence as they waited for class to start. About a minute before the bell, Niall Horan walked into class and sat next to Harry.

Louis watched as Harry leaned over to Niall and whispered something to him. When he was done, Niall burst into loud laughter and sneaked surreptitious glances at Louis. He was absolutely certain that Harry had just told Niall about the sheer awkwardness Louis had created between them.

Zayn noticed their exchange as well and burst out laughing once again, jabbing Louis in the gut with his elbow. Louis had to physically restrain himself from punching Zayn square in the neck.

When the bell rang, the sub stood up and addressed the class. 

“Alright, your teacher left me with intructions to tell you that you have a project on culture around the world coming up, and you all have to pick partners. She has left here an assortment of subjects to choose from, and you’re going to be picking out of a hat to see what subject you get. Whatever is written on the piece of paper is your topic. You have five minutes to choose partners and pick your topic, and then you have to read from the textbook silently. Alright, so choose your partners.”

Louis opened his mouth into a gaping silent scream and planted his face directly in front of Zayn’s. “Fancy bein my partner?” He asked in a southern American accent. 

Zayn thwacked him in the head. “Sorry, babe. This is the one time I’m helping you with this bet.” 

“What?” Louis asked, confused. “You don’t seem to be helping me at all right now, actually.”

Zayn sighed exasperatedly. “No, jackass. But I’m about to do something extremely generous.”

With that, Zayn stood up and walked over to where Harry and Niall were sitting. As he approached them, they stopped their conversation and stared up at him.

Zayn smiled at the two of them. “Hello,” he said simply.

“…Hi,” they both murmured back, exchanging questioning glances with eachother.

Zayn smiled. “Was just wondering if you’d like to be my partner, Niall.”

Niall seemed shocked. “Aren’t you working with Tomlinson?” he asked. Louis, who was watching the conversation, felt his cheeks heat up at the sudden glance Harry spared him.

Zayn shrugged easily. “Fancied a change of scenery. So, what’ll it be?”

“Well, I kind of assumed I’d be working with Harry… Who would you work with?” He directed the last part to Harry.

“Guess If you really wanted to work with Malik, I’d work with Tomlinson, he mumbled, shrugging.

“Youre okay with this mate?” Niall asked, just to make sure. Harry snorted. 

“Niall, do whatever you want. It’s okay. Really.”

“Alright,” Niall gathered up his books and stood up, ready to follow Zayn back over to where Louis was sitting. “Coming, Harry?” he asked.

Harry nodded, getting his books slowly. If he was honest, he didn’t want to work with Louis Tomlinson. It was just too risky to have to talk to someone besides Niall often, and he would undoubtedly have to do that with Louis.

Not only that, but the fact that Louis said hi to him in the hallway out of completely nowhere after staring at him all day didn’t exactly scream coincidence. Harry was almost certain that the popular boy was up to something. He just flat out didn’t trust Louis.

——

Louis bit the inside of his cheek as he watched Harry get his books and make his way over to Louis’ chair. When Harry arrived, he dropped his books down on the desk next to Louis.

He turned to Louis, who became even more nervous. He took a split second to reflect on the fact that he was nervous, but squashed it into insignificance before he could really think about it too deeply.

“So, guess we’re working together, since Zayn ditched you and Niall ditched me.”

To say Louis was suprised to hear what Harry’s voice really sounded like was an understatement. Harry’s voice was one of the best speaking voices Louis had ever heard. A low, deep, and smooth tone coupled with slow speech made Louis automatically associate Harry’s voice with melted chocolate and sleep and being utterly relaxed.

In fact, when he heard Harry’s voice his nervousness left his body. In its place was a feeling of comfort and complacency. 

“Yes, it’s does seem that way. I’m Louis, by the way, if you didn’t know.”

Harry’s eyebrows raised. “I’d tell you my name, but it seems you already know it,” he said with a straight face, but a trace of amusement colored his words. 

Louis flushed. “Yeah, sorry about that before, that was really just awkward for everyone involved. I’d explain it but I … can’t.”

“I’ll let it go, for this time. Anyway, so do you want to go pick the topic?” 

Louis nodded, standing up. Harry followed him to the front of the room. 

When they reached the hat, Harry stuck his hand inside and pulled out a slip of paper.

“‘Astrophysics’,” he read. He shared a confused glance with Louis.

“Now I could be wrong, but I was almost certain this was a history class,” Harry continued.

Louis laughed. “It is, mate. I’m just as confused as you are.”

“Well what are we supposed to do?”

Louis grinned as they made their way back to their seats. “Dont worry. I’m an expert at shit like this. All we have to do is do a little work on the project, then go to the teacher, show them the work you did, convince them that it was too hard a subject to give out, and they give you a different topic! It’s so easy, it’s great.”

Harry’s eyebrows raised. “They let you get away with that?” he asked, a faint smile growing on his face.

Louis wavered. “Yeah! Well, actually usually only Ms Henney. And besides, with her wedding and all, I can’t really see her giving two shits about what we do our project on, yeah?”

“True. So, where are we gonna work today? Let’s not do it at my house,” Harry added quickly.

Louis thought that was a little suspicious, but decided not to comment.

“Sure, we could work at my house. I’ll have to warn you though- my little sisters will be there and they could become easily obsessed with your hair…”

Harry hid a smile as he ran a hand through his hair. “That’s alright, I don’t mind,” he said, finally letting a little bit of a smile show. 

Louis grinned. “Great! So now that’s all settled. Come to my house at 5 pm tonight.” 

After Louis told Harry his address and how to get to his house, the bell rang. Smiling a good-bye at Harry, he walked over to where Zayn and Niall were sitting and his friend up by his ear.

“Lets go babe, we got shit to do”,” Louis sang fondly. Ignoring Zayn’s shouts of protest, Louis kept a firm hold on his ear as they exited the room.

Releasing Zayns ear and dodging the punch thrown his way, Louis waited until they were far away from the classroom before he turned and grinned smugly in Zayn’s face.

“Guess who’s coming to my house later?” Louis asked Zayn happily. 

Zayn rolled his eyes. “It means nothing. You’re working on a project together.”

“Its still a start!”

And it was. It could only go uphill from here.


	4. Chapter 3

When the final bell rang signalling the end of school, Harry met up with Niall at his locker. Leaning against the wall, Harry watched as his friend packed up his books he would need for the homework of the day.

“So, you coming to my house today?” Niall asked, looking at Harry from the corner of his eye. Harry sighed.

“I don’t think so.” He lowered his voice so only Niall could hear his next statement. “Robin was pissed that I was barely home all weekend. Last night he was being… Particularly brutal. Nothing new of course, but it obviously wasn’t enjoyable. It’d just be a deathwish if I didn’t go home for at least a little while, maybe clean a few things up before he gets home?”

Niall winced in sympathy for Harry. “Alright, I’ll drive you home. I wish you didn’t have to put up with that asshole, mate.”

Harry sighed, looking at the ceiling as Niall finished packing up his books. “Me, too,” he said softly.

When Niall finished packing up, they headed out to the car and started home.

“Why do you think Malik and Tomlinson want to work with us on the projects for social studies?” Niall asked after a few minutes of silence, save for the quiet music playing from the radio.

Harry shrugged, gazing out the window. “No idea. It was a bit weird, though. Tomlinson doesn’t seem like a bad guy, at any rate. How’s Malik?”

“Seems like a nice bloke,” Niall shrugged. And it was true, Zayn had seemed like a nice, normal teenager. It wasn’t something that Niall had anticipated in the other boy, who always seemed overly preoccupied with his appearance.

Harry nodded in response, and they lapsed back into silence again. 

A few minutes later, Niall pulled up at the Styles residence. 

“Good luck, Harry,” Niall said, watching Harry carefully as he got his belongings. 

Harry smiled a little at Niall. “Thanks, mate. And thanks for the ride,” he added.

“No problem.” It just about broke Niall’s heart, the way that Harry barely smiled anymore. Harry was one of his best friends and he was a genuinely a nice guy- not a mean streak in him at all. By the unfairness of life, Harry was no exception to the unspoken rule that the loveliest people, by no fault of their own, lead the shittiest lives.

Harry gave Niall one last closed mouth half-smile before shutting the car door. “I’ll text you,” Was the last thing he said through the open window before walking up the path to his house.

As Niall drove away, Harry dug inside his backpack for his key. Finding it, he jammed it into the lock. Because the lock was old, and because they didn’t have the money to fix it, Harry had to partake in a complicated series of twists and pushes and jiggling of the key in order for the lock to open.

When he finally got the door open, he stepped inside and dropped his backpack at the door. He walked past the rubble and mess in his dining and living rooms into the kitchen, which in truth wasn’t much cleaner.

Actually, the kitchen was quite gross, to be honest, Harry noted absently. The dishes were piled up high in the sink, it reeked of week old meat and cheese, and there were empty boxes of snacks and crumbs everywhere. The table was not made, something sticky clung to the floor and to Harry’s shoes, and there was mold growing on the ceiling.

Sighing at the sight that met his eyes, Harry made his way over to the sink to get a drink of water, his sneakers sticking disgustingly to the grime on the floor.

He decided that he would straighten up the kitchen before going to Louis’. This way, although he would be out when his stepfather got home, he would still know that Harry had been there.

As Harry began loading dirty dishes and bowls into the dishwasher, his thoughts turned, inevitably, to his family and current familial situation.

As a young child, Harry had lived in Holmes Chapel with his mother, father, and older sister Gemma. When he was seven years old, his parents got a divorce, and his dad moved out, leaving Harry with his sister and mom. Harry had been devastated that his family had been ripped apart, but he learned to accept the fact that his mom and dad didn’t love each other anymore.

Harry never really visited his father, and he wasn’t sure why. He guessed that if his father wanted him to visit, he’d ask Harry to come to his house. Since he never did, Harry never expressed an interest in seeing him again. And that was that.

A few years later, Harry’s mom met a man named Robin. Robin seemed like a nice enough man, one that was financially stable and treated Harry’s mother with respect. When Harry turned eleven, his mother married Robin and he was glad his mother had found someone that made her happy. Harry had always been especially close with his mother, so her happiness meant a lot to him.

Fast forward a few years. By the time Harry was fourteen, Gemma had gone off to college, leaving Harry with Robin and his mom. Although he missed Gemma, life was good. Harry was popular at school, had many friends, and a happy home life. 

Until his mother died.

Harry didn’t exactly remember everything that happened that night. Most of it was a blur. Harry and his mother had been driving home from school in a terrible rainstorm, when a truck had swerved out of nowhere at them from the middle of an intersection. The giant 18-wheeler crashed into them, sending them careening into the pole that held up the traffic light. Harry didn’t remember anything after that.

He did remember waking up in the hospital, however, with Gemma and Robin there. Gazing blearily at their defeated faces through sleep-crusted eyes, wincing against his pounding headache, a horrible, black feeling crept up through his stomach to clench at his heart. 

“Where’s mum?” He had croaked. They said nothing in response. Harry watched as Robin turned away, bringing a hand up to cover his eyes as his face crumpled. Gemma moved closer to Harry, her hand coming up to stroke his hair as tears spilled out of her eyes.

Gemma tried to speak several times but choked on her words, finally giving up and collapsing to her knees next to the bed, sobbing into Harry’s shoulder. She clung to Harry’s hand and wept relentlessly. 

Robin had offered no sign of comfort other than a hand grasping Gemma’s shoulder. His other was still covering his face.

Harry didn’t know when he started crying. He didn’t know how long the three of them stayed in that room, sobbing until exhaustion. He didn’t remember blacking out again. 

He was never told that his mother died. It was unspoken but understood, in the way some things are when they are too painful to utter aloud. He also never cried, after the three of them expressed their laments in the hospital room. He didn’t cry at the funeral, or the wake. He went through the motions almost as if he was a mere observer in his own life.

After Harry’s mother’s death, life seemed to stop for Harry. His sister eventually went back to college, Robin eventually went back to work, and Harry eventually went back to school. 

But his life didn’t move forward, it didn’t go anywhere. His friends were understanding for the first few months, offering him help and solace in trying to cheer him up.

However, they began to lose touch with him as he drew farther and farther away from them. His grieving was not going away. He felt utterly abandoned and devastated as his mom’s loss.

His father had left him, his sister had gone off to college, and his mother had passed away. He was left with a step father that he admittedly liked, but he couldn’t help feeling extremely alone and unloved. 

He didn’t understand why he was pulling away from his friends. All he knew was, he didn’t want them to leave him first.

While Harry’s life deteriorated, although he didn’t realize it first, Robin’s did too. It began with Robin staying out much later than normal, coming home late in the evenings drunk and sad.

It escalated from drunk and sad, to drunk and angry. When Robin came home this way, he sought after Harry to take out his rage. Robin hadn’t allowed himself to grieve properly after Ann’a death, and the emotions he had repressed were catching up with him, fast. He was falling apart.

It got to the point where Harry would hide in his room whenever he knew Robin would be geting home. Robin never hurt him physically, but he hurled verbal abuse at Harry, blaming him for his mother’s death.

At this point, Harry hated Robin. He hated Gemma for leaving him for college, and he hated his mother for dying. His real father was so far out of the picture that even the thought of him was foreign, but he hated the thought of his real father too.

After about a year of this, Robin’s drinking problem got so bad and so expensive that they were forced to move out of their house in Holmes Chapel, as they were unable to pay the bills anymore. They moved to a small home in Doncaster.

The move wasn’t painful for Harry; he no longer had a life in his hometown. Not just in the social aspect, but he felt as though his time in Holmes Chapel had just naturally come to a close- there was nothing left for him there.

Harry tried to make himself believe that everything would be fine in Doncaster; a new beginning. Maybe Robin had learned from his mistakes, and maybe he would stop drinking. Maybe they could both learn to move on from Ann’s death. 

Of course, this didn’t happen. Robin evidently either couldn’t stop, or didn’t want to stop, because he continued drinking as soon as he got a job in Doncaster. Harry ignored this as best as he could, but it was hard to overlook because of many reasons.

For one, money was constantly tight. Their house was cheaper in Doncaster and they’d gotten rid of their second car (Harry refused to this day to drive), but Robin’s drinking problem was financially felt by both of them. 

Another reason was quite obviously Robin himself. His aggressive ways when he was drunk scared Harry, as much as he hated to admit it. He hated being in the house when Robin was intoxicated, he hated it completely. 

Not only did he hate it, he was embarrassed by it as well. Harry absolutely did not want anyone knowing about his problems at home. Not only was Harry himself broken on the inside, but the poverty added to the humiliation of his step-father was too much. Harry knew he had to do his best to not let anyone at his new school know about any of it.

When Harry had started school in Doncaster, he had done his very best to fly under the social radar. All he needed was to be left alone. At first a couple of girls had approached him, but he let them down quietly and kindly. People left him alone, and that was how he wanted it.

Well, everyone except for Niall. On Harry’s second day of school, Niall had approached Harry and began talking to him. Harry had tried to discourage Niall from forging a friendship with him, but Niall had persisted for days and to be honest Harry just hadn’t had the energy anymore to put him off.

They had fallen into an easy friendship, but Harry did his best to keep his home life hidden from Niall. The cheerful Irish boy had no place knowing Harry’s problems, and he intended to keep it that way. 

However, shit happens and of course, about 5 months after Harry and Niall became friends, Niall invited himself over to Harry’s house one night when Robin was drunk and, well. Niall saw what Harry lived with on a day to day basis and was understandably appalled.

The next day had brought an extremely uncomfortable talk in which Harry admitted to Niall that Robin was an abusive alcoholic. Niall had expressed his sympathy and offered Harry a place to stay in case times ever got unbearable.

Harry, relieved that Niall had been so understanding and had promised not to tell anyone, thanked him and actually took him up on his offer many times. In many ways, Niall knowing the truth about Robin actually brought the boys closer.

One thing Harry had not told Niall about was that his mother died. Harry wanted to keep that for himself- he didn’t want anyone to know. If he was completely honest with himself, when he lay at night awake and let his mind wander, he actually found himself believing Robin when he told Harry that it was his fault his mom was dead.

If Ann hadn’t had to pick up Harry from school that day, she wouldn’t have died.

Harry shook himself, finishing loading the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. He didn’t want to feel the guilt yet- there was enough time to think about that tonight when Robin reminded him.

As Harry washed his hands, he let his mind go blank. He relaxed as the hot water ran over his hands, soothing as tears.

Soon enough, his thoughts turned to Louis Tomlinson. What did the boy want with him? The school’s funny man, suddenly turning his attention to Harry Styles? The quiet kid with no friends? Harry didn’t want it, didn’t want the attention.

He also didn’t want to work with Louis Tomlinson on this project. He knew he should’ve said something to Niall when Zayn was asking, but Niall had looked pleased at the request and Harry didn’t want to become a burden. 

Working with Louis Tomlinson was risky. They had an entire project to do, and Harry absolutely could not risk Louis finding out about Robin or his problem. He didn’t want the questions, or the uncomfortable looks Louis would probably give him since they weren’t actually friends.

Harry was not fond of people knowing his problems.

He sighed, drying his hands off and walking away from the sink. It was already 4:30. If he wanted to get to Louis’ house on time for 5:00, he had to start walking now. 

He cast his eyes around the kitchen and noted that the clean sink didn’t really have all that much of an effect on the whole kitchen. He decided against doing anything else anyway, picked up his backpack and left, slamming the door behind him.

——

He finally made it to Louis Tomlinson’s house at 5:15. Having misjudged the distance, the walk took longer than he had expected, but he wasn’t concerned. Louis definitely didn’t seem like one to be obsessed with being punctuality. 

He walked up the front steps to the house, observing his surroundings. The house looked like every other house on the block, so he didn’t have to observe for too long.

He rang the doorbell and stepped back off the stairs leading to the door out of politeness.

After about 30 seconds, the door still hadn’t been answered. Harry was contemplating ringing the doorbell again when the door was suddenly yanked open, revealing two young twin girls, aged probably about 4 or 5. They both had straight, slightly messy blonde hair, large blue eyes, and were dressed in princess dresses.

“Are you Winston?” One of the girls asked excitedly while the other attempted to adjust her tiara, which was slightly lopsided.

Harry looked down at himself very deliberately, and then back at the young girl again. “I’m afraid not,” he said, causing both girls to visibly slump in disappointment. “Who’s Winston?” 

“Winston is the driver, he’s supposed to take us to the ball!” 

Harry actually smiled in amusement at the enthusiasm the twins displayed- they really were adorable. Harry’s always had a soft spot for kids. “Oh really? A ball? And just where is this ball? I can’t believe I wasn’t invited!”

The girls both giggled into their hands. “It’s at the Grand Palace! And you can’t go to the ball in normal clothes, silly!” One of them said laughingly.

“Come on, we’ll give you an outfit!” 

Harry suddenly found himself being yanked into the house by the two tiny girls in princess dresses, with a surprising amount of force. He stumbled into the house and practically had to sprint to keep up as the girls (who he assumed were Louis’ younger sisters) dragged him up the stairs.

They arrived in a room that was entirely pink. Pink walls, pink bed, pink dresser, pink carpet, pink lamp, pink lighting, pink shades and pink toys. Harry felt a bit like he was drowning in pink.

One of the girls pulled on his hand until he sat down on the floor, setting his backpack next to him. She turned away from him for a second before facing him again, this time returning with a comb. 

“First we have to comb your hair!” She said enthusiastically while beginning to attack Harry’s hair, holding his head in place with one hand while violently ripping the comb through his curls with the other. He struggled not to wince in pain as all of a sudden he wondered what in the hell he was doing, playing ‘going to the ball’ with Louis Tomlinson’s sisters. He couldn’t imagine a weirder scenario.

While one of the girls was combing (mutilating) his hair, the other was going through her drawers presumably searching for something for Harry to wear.

Harry fought down a smile. “I’m not sure any of your clothes will fit me,” he said gently, as his head was periodically yanked from side to side by the hair.

The twin by the dresser seemed to understand this, and stopped digging through her drawers. “Okay! You can just wear Louis’ clothes, then.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “Um, that’s probably not a good idea-” He began, but to no avail. The girl was already holding up a purple “Jack Wills” hoodie. 

“You can wear this,” She commanded cutely, shoving the jacket into Harry’s hands. 

He looked helplessly between her and the jacket as he felt his hair being mercilessly pulled out of his head, and wondered where the hell was Louis. 

“Well? Put it on!” The girl said, with large smile. She grabbed one of Harry’s hands.

“If you put on the jacket, you can take me to the ball!” She added, her bright blue eyes growing absurdly large in the way only toddlers can achieve. 

Harry was just about to give in to that expression and put on the jacket (evidently he was spineless when it came to kids), when he heard Louis’ voice from the hallway.

“Phoebe? Daisy? What are you doing in there?” 

Harry silently thanked the lord that Louis was here- he was shaken out of his toddler-induced pink daze and looked up just as Louis arrived in the doorway.

As soon as Louis caught sight of Harry sitting on the floor being manhandled by his little sisters, he burst out laughing. Harry almost grinned, suspecting he must be quite the spectacle right now. He settled for a sheepish expression.

As soon as the twins saw Louis, they both dropped what they were doing and ran over to him, each hugging one of Louis’ legs.

“Louis! Louis! Winston is taking us to the ball!” They yelled joyously. Harry held up his hand.

“Hang on, I thought I said I wasn’t Winston,” He said lightly. The twins shot him silly grins as one of them hung upside from Louis’ leg.

“Yes you are, Winston!”

Harry looked at Louis for help, who was now struggling to keep his laughter at bay. He watched as Louis crouched down next to his sisters.

“Loves, what did mummy tell you about kidnapping guests and making them take you to the ball?” He asked fake-sternly.

“She said have fun!”

Harry suppressed a snort as he watched Louis roll his eyes quickly. 

“No, she said that you aren’t allowed to do it. And didn’t I tell you I’d take you to the two to the ball? I can’t believe you like Winston better than me!” he added at the end, shooting a cheeky smile at Harry.

Louis grinned at the choruses of “No Louis, we love you best, promise!”

“You better love me best! I’ll take you to the ball later, I’ll even put on a tuxedo, I promise. But right now I need to do some work with Winston on something for school, is that right lovelies?” 

They both nodded vigorously, and then attacked him with a hug. Louis chuckled, hugging them back tightly before releasing them.

Harry actually felt his heart clench a little while watching this little adorable scene unfold before him. He’d had no idea that Louis Tomlinson of all people would be this nice to his sisters, even going so far as to offer to play with them instead of being pestered to do so. Harry found himself impressed, he had actually found a side of Louis that he liked.

He looked up at Louis as the other lad stood up, untangling himself from the twins.

Louis shot Harry a dazzling smile. “Ready to start?”

Harry nodded, grabbing his bag. It was a good a time as any, he thought. He took a deep breath and followed Louis out of the room, waving to the twins while they made him promise he’d visit them again.

He promised them, all the while knowing that he wouldn’t be able to break his promise to them, which would mean he’d have to return to the Tomlinson household.


	5. Chapter 4

Louis led Harry down the hall to his room, having rescued him from the adorable clutches of his sisters. They arrived down the hall and entered the room.

Louis tried to look at his room from an unbiased viewpoint- It seemed like a pretty standard teenage male room as far as he was concerned. Plain wall-paper, dirty clothing strewn all over the floor, bed unmade, posters of girls in bikinis on the walls. He wondered what Harry thought of it. Then he wondered why he cared.

He sat down on his bed and picked up his laptop, ready to bullshit the project like a boss. A few moments later, he noticed that Harry was still hovering by the door uncertainly, as though unsure if he was allowed in.

Louis smiled at him. “You can come in you know, although I can’t promise you’ll be able to find your way out with all the clutter. Sorry about that by the way.”

Harry walked into the room and shrugged, offering Louis an almost-smile. “S’alright, it’d be weird if your room was spotless anyway.”

Louis laughed and patted the spot on his bed next to him. “Sit down, we gotta get started! This is gonna be a trying ordeal, let me tell you now. But don’t fret young Styles, we can get through this if we just believe.”

Harry almost snorted. “I do believe in fairies, I do I do!” he said. As soon as the words left his mouth, he looked somewhat confused, as though surprised he had said this. 

Louis was pleasantly suprised, as Peter Pan was his favorite movie, even now. He knew this was more than a little odd for a lad his age, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.

“Quoting Peter Pan! Ah, a man after my own heart,” he said dramatically. Not waiting for Harry to respond, he opened a word document on his laptop and turned to Harry. 

“So how do you propose we start?” He held back a smile as Hsrry’s face twisted in confusion. 

“I thought you knew how to spin bullshit?” Harry asked. 

Louis grinned. “That I do, Harry, not to worry. I was merely wondering if you had any ideas to enrich our paper, as I’m pretty sure Ms Henney has seen all of my tricks. Eh, no matter.”

Harry shot him a slightly nervous look. “If she knows all your tricks, won’t it not work?”

“Nope, it’ll work, don’t worry,” Louis said as typed ‘astrophysics’ into the search engine. He clicked on the wikipedia link, and proceeded to copy the entire article and paste it to word.

Harry was shocked. “This is what you do every time?” 

Louis looked from his laptop to Harry with pride. “Yep, it’s never failed me!”

Louis watched in wonder as all of a sudden, he finally saw some emotion out of Harry. The curly haired boy took one look at the giant plagarized word document, got a bit of a look on his face, like he was about to sneeze, and burst into loud laughter. Louis was suprised to note that it was one of the best laughs he had ever heard.

But it also sparked an interest in Louis- something was off about Harry’s laugh. It sounded out of use, almost like he hadn’t laughed in such a long time that he had kind of forgotten how.

Louis was intrigued by this. But it wasn’t what tipped him off to the fact that he may have been in slightly over his head with the bet.

What sent him over the edge was, when he looked over to see Harry laugh, the only thing he could see were dimples. Framing Harrys face perfectly were two identical dents on either side of his smile. 

Louis couldn’t stop staring.

When Harry stopped laughing (which was admittedly very quickly; the boy didn’t laugh for long) Louis was still staring. He wondered idly where the dimples had gone.

Harry shot Louis a strange look. “….is there something on my face, or…?” he said, raising a hand hesitantly to touch his cheek.

Louis suddenly realized where Harry’s dimples had disappeared to- it was because he had stopped smiling. He wondered when his brain lost the ability to make simple connections. He also wondered why he was STILL STARING.

Feigning a sudden coughing fit, Louis turned to the side and began hacking out fake cough after fake cough, trying to get Harry’s attention away from his accidental staring. He suspected he might have overdone it a bit, because when he was finished Harry looked quite concerned.

“Um, are you okay?” Harry asked, a bit of worry coloring his tone.

Louis waved his hand as though to brush away the question. “Fine, fine don’t worry about me.”

He shifted uncomfortably a bit while Harry continued to look at him, not knowing what to do next. 

What is wrong with me? He thought somewhat angrily. He was never this awkward around other people!

He accredited it to the fact that Harry was basically a stranger, and maybe Louis himself was just bad at making friends. Surely, it had to be.

“Alright then. Um, so. The project.” Harry said eventually.

“Yes! The project. Right then. So. The next thing we’ll need to do is add tons of pictures and sayings and hope that it will embellish the project.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “I thought we weren’t handing this in?” he asked. Louis grinned.

“The more effort it looks like you put in, the more likely they are to let you switch topics.”

Harry nodded seriously. “What pictures are associated with astrophysics, then?”

“Well I was thinking we could start off with a picture of Billy Joel, include a few tutorials on how to crochet, and an online subscription to People magazine.”

Harry stared. “How exactly is this gonna help?” 

Louis stroked his chin mysteriously. “A magician never reveals his tricks, grasshopper.” 

Louis watched in wonder as Harry struggled to contain a snort. “I’m not so sure that saying works here, Tomlinson.”

“Christ, just call me out, will you?” Louis joked. 

Ignoring Harry’s next comment, Louis opened up iTunes and turned on his playlist. The beginning chords of “For Angels To Fly” by Ed Sheeran floated into the room.

Harry raised his eyebrows at Louis. “Whats this?” 

Louis gasped mockingly at Harry. “You don’t mean to say you’ve never heard of Ed Sheeran?!” he asked incredulously.

Harry shrugged. “Cant say that I have,” he remarked. He then found himself staring at Louis’ finger, which had somehow found it’s way to directly in front of his face.

“YOU,” Louis began, “Are a deprived young child, Harry Styles. We shall listen to Ed Sheeran until our ears bleed. Or at least, until the project is over, so you can experience the true manifestation of perfection in a singing voice.”

“So, you like this guy’s music a bit, huh,” Harry asked, deadpan.

“More than life itself,” Louis replied, equally as seriously. This time, Harry couldn’t hold back his snort, and Louis couldn’t stop his staring. The DIMPLES.

They spent the next hour or so listening to Ed Sheeran songs and thinking up random things to add to their fake paper. Louis congratulated himself on making Harry laugh a bunch more times, and was surprised to find out that even though he’d only known Harry pretty much a day, he felt like he’d been friends with him forever.

The friendship, simply felt natural.

“And that’s why you never yell ‘That’s the bomb diggity!’ on an airplane. I mean obviously for security reasons, but also if you’re describing something as ‘the bomb diggity’ then you need to seriously re-evaluate your life,” Louis concluded from a long-winded story he’d been telling Harry.

He felt the happy squirm of pride in his stomach at making Harry laugh. He just didn’t seem like a kid who laughed enough, and if Louis was able to help him out with that, then he was all for it.

As Harry’s fit of hysteria winded down, the song “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepson came on from Louis’ playlist.

Louis would vehemently deny it later, but he did let out a rather unmanly sounding scream.

“I LOVE THIS SONG!!!!!!” he shouted, and began to sing along to the music.

To his intense surprise, Harry began singing along with him. Although he was singing in a way that suggested he was kind of making fun of himself, in the way that people do when they sing so as to not be taken seriously, Louis got the idea that Harry was actually not that bad of a singer.

By the end of the song, Louis was jumping around the room, dancing ridiculously and still singing along, while Harry was laying back on the bed, once again in hysterics.

Louis honestly couldn’t remember ever having so much fun with someone who was practically a stranger. The awkwardness from before had entirely dissipated, and it was like they’d been friends for years. And Louis liked that.

When the song ended, Louis flopped down on his back on the bed next to Harry, who was still chuckling.

“A guy who quotes Peter Pan, who sings Call Me Maybe? I think I might love you, Harry Styles,” Louis said, out of breath from the performance he’d just put on.

All Harry did was snort as a response. Silence fell between them, save for a new song playing from the laptop, but it was a comfortable silence. 

Harry turned to Louis. “D’you reckon we have enough for the project? If we do, I should probably go, I need to walk home,”

Louis nodded and bit his lip. “Yeah, I’d say we’re done. Shit, though! I wish you didn’t have to walk home, that sucks. I’d give you a ride but my mum has the car with her at work.”

Harry shrugged. “Dont worry about it, I just kind of need to be home soon.”

“Alright mate, if you’re sure.”

As Harry walked out the door, he made sure to say good-bye to Daisy and Phoebe, and made them promise him they’d have a good time at the ball.

——

After Harry left, Louis was confused.

Confused in a bad way. Not that confusion was ever good, but this time it was especially confusing. And Louis didn’t like that.

His biggest dilemma right now was that he had completely overlooked a huge potential problem in the bet.

He knew he’d have to seduce Harry. He knew that he’d have to get close to him to do so. But, he hadn’t anticipated on genuinely liking the boy once he’d gotten to know him a little better.

And he did. Like him, that is. Harry seemed like a genuinely nice person, if a little quiet and reserved at first. Louis had been able to have a lot of fun with him, which surprised him because he’d originally thought Harry would be a bit boring, but easy to crack.

So now Louis faced a problem. Since he now was basically on the way to considering Harry a friend, he wasn’t so sure how good of an idea it would be to purposefully play with his emotions and try to get him to fall in love with Louis.

That could seriously ruin a potentially great friendship.

There was another source of confusion for Louis, one that he carefully avoided thinking about. Which would be precisely be, Harry’s dimples. Louis didn’t ever recall having any specific sort of dimple kink, so this was a bit of a new one. However, he didn’t let his speculation go any further on this topic, and he forcefully stopped himself from thinking about it anymore.

But the main problem Louis was having was a moral one- he didn’t want to screw around with a potentially great friend’s feelings.

Louis laid down on his bed, pushing the laptop to the side. He dug inside his pocket and fished his phone out, wanting to text Zayn about having Harry over.

He fully intended to gloat to Zayn (as in, lie blatantly) about how great things were going with Harry, about how they were all over eachother and Harry was seconds away from saying he loved Louis.

Instead, this is what he found himself saying. 

To: Zayn

Had Harry over to work on the project, he just left. He seems like a genuinely nice, good guy, are you sure the bet is a good idea after all? -Lou

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but the reply from Zayn jarred him back to his old thoughts- this was a bet, and he needed to win.

To: Louis

If you’re going to back out because you’re getting cold feet this early on, you pay me double and I gloat twice as much just because you couldn’t handle it. -Zayn

Sure, Zayn was an asshole, but he had reminded Louis that he hadn’t agreed to this bet to back out. He was in this to win.

——

As Harry walked home, he couldn’t help but be completely shocked with himself. He couldn’t remember having that much fun since his mom had died, maybe even before that. Even with Niall, who actually was great fun, he hadn’t laughed that hard.

In fact, Harry started massaging his cheeks, which ached from smiling so hard. His sides and stomach were also sore from all the laughing, something he hadn’t even known was possible.

 

Actually, that was another thing. Harry had surprised himself today, with the bantering with Louis, the joking around, the SINGING for christ’s sake, and most importantly, all the smiling.

Harry barely ever smiled anymore. It wasn’t that he made an active effort not to, it was just that he seldom found anything to smile at.

But this afternoon, that emptiness had abated for a while. It had been a great feeling, if he was honest. 

The main thing bothering him though was the fact that this was Louis Tomlinson. This was a guy that, unless you were one of his friends or a hot girl, did not speak to you or acknowledge your existence. And this made Harry apprehensive. Although he had admittedly enjoyed hanging out with Louis today, he was nervous about just what kind of experiment he was to Louis and his friends. It was the only explanation for all that had happened today.


	6. Chapter 5

The next morning, Louis slid into his seat like a boss next to Zayn, who was looking rather worse for wear. 

“You look like crap today, babe,” Louis sang cheerfully, directly into Zayn’s ear. The tanned boy waved a hand up near his ear irritably, as though trying to swat away an annoying fly.

“Thanks, Lou. My feelings are your playground. Feel free to take a shit on them wherever and whenever you please.”

Louis snorted. “I don’t know what playgrounds you’ve been going to, but the ones I went to didn’t have random piles of shit everywhere.”

Zayn groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. “It is too bloody early for this,” he mumbled.

Louis’ grin widened. “Too early for what, exactly?” he teased.

“YOU! Too early for you!” Zayn burst out, shooting Louis a death glare. Louis giggled but finally took mercy on Zayn.

He toyed idly with his suspenders as he allowed Zayn a few moments of silence before the bell rang. He spoke up not too much later.

“I think you’d like him.”

Zayn cracked one eye open. “Who?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “You know who. Harry.” He raised his eyebrows as Zayn scoffed.

“That may be true, but I’m not about to become all buddy-buddy with him.” Zayn furtively cast a look around them, and when he saw that the coast was clear, he muttered to Louis, “In the sacred words of High School Musical, I gotta get my head in the game. I can’t lose focus by forming a friendship.”

Louis chose to calmly and gracefully glide over this topic, as it was a little too close for comfort to his predicament problem with Harry, and he didn’t want Zayn to know this. He tactfully changed the subject. Zayn either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“Speaking of forming friendships, how were things with Niall yesterday? Did you guys meet up?” 

Zayn shrugged as they both looked over at the blonde Irish boy. “He seems like a cool dude. Laughs a lot, which is fun. We’re meeting up today, should be interesting.”

“What topic did you guys get?”

“Modern day British pop culture.”

Louis sat straight up in his chair in indignation. “WHAT?!” he cried. “Thats so easy! D’you know what I got? ASTROPHYSICS.”

Zayn burst into laughter. “It’s a social studies class though.”

“I know! I think Ms Henney lost her mind cuz of the wedding and all.”

As Zayn nodded his agreement, Harry walked into the classroom over to his seat.

Instead of keeping his head down and avoiding eye contact with everyone like he usually did, Harry tugged on his beanie as his eyes shyly slid over to Louis.

Louis firmly ignored the squirm in his stomach as he shot a grin at Harry and waved at him. The squirming got worse when Harry offered him a small smile in return, his cheeks denting to accomodate his dimples.

The dimples should have been the first clue to Louis that he was utterly screwed.

However, true to form, Louis managed somehow to cut these thoughts completely out of his head for the rest of the day. 

During lunch, Liam had inquired about Harry’s visit to Louis’ house the other day. Louis told him largely what he had told Zayn- that Harry was a nice kid, he was fun to have around and that Liam would probably like him. 

Liam had shot him a skeptical look and had said, “Are you willing to ruin a potentially great friendship so that you can win a bet?” Louis had winced and requested that Liam never phrase it that way again, as that was how Louis himself had viewed it the night before.

Liam had sighed and said, “Fine. Would you like to knowingly ruin someone’s life and humiliate them because you’ve manipulated them and played with their heartstrings like a puppetteer?”

Louis had gulped and shifted uncomfortably as Zayn jokingly congratulated Liam on the fitting simile.

Louis had opted not to answer, and instead, pushed Liam’s arguments to the back of his brain where they wouldn’t bother him. He didn’t know why it was so difficult to remain apathetic during the bet, but he couldn’t help it. Something inside was warning him that hurting Harry Styles was a bad idea.

When it was finally time for social studies, Louis was surprised to note that he actually wanted to see Harry. It really was enigmatic, how good you could feel with another person after only really knowing them for so short a time.

When Louis and Zayn entered the classroom, Louis made a beeline for Harry and Niall. Sliding into the empty chair on Harry’s other side, Louis smiled and voiced his greeting enthusiastically.

“Hello, boys! How are you on this fine specimen of a day?” 

By this time Zayn had ambled his way over and was busy sitting himself down. Hearing Louis’s ridiculously phrased question, he snorted and said to Niall, “Just ignore him. He’s most likely psychotic anyway.”

Louis noted how quickly Niall burst into laughter at Zayn’s simple words and smiled; he liked people who laughed easily.

Louis leaned across Harry to shake Niall’s hand.

“Louis Tomlinson,” he said cheerfully. Niall grinned at him.

“I know who you are, mate. Reckon everyone does. Niall Horan,” he said, grabbing Louis’ hand and shaking it enthusiastically.

Louis leaned back after the introduction, momentarily caught off guard at the sudden unexpected closeness to Harry. 

Clearing his throat, he said, “Good to meet you Niall. I have to say though, I feel somewhat sorry for you.”

Niall’s face clouded with confusion. “Why’s that?” Louis smirked.

“Cuz you gotta work with Zayn, of course!” He was unable to hold back a slight giggle at the look on Zayn’s face. “Having to work with that drama queen. God, I think I’d off myself, yeah?”

Niall broke into rich laughter. “Drama queen, eh?” He said to Zayn, who harrumphed grumpily. As Zayn and Niall began a conversation, Louis turned his attention to Harry, who had watched Louis for nearly the entire exchange.

“Harry! Did you miss me terribly the 24 hours I wasn’t by your side?” Louis asked with a cheeky grin. His heart warmed as he saw Harry’s green eyes light up with amusement.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Harry replied. “Nearly killed myself from loneliness, if I’m honest.” 

Harry smiled softly at the bark of laughter Louis let out. He was pleasantly surprised at the easy familiarity with which Louis was treating him. Never in a million years had he expected Louis Tomlinson to be so friendly, or so easy to talk to. 

Before Louis could reply however, Ms. Henney walked into the room. Before Louis could feel any sort of happiness that his favorite teacher was back in school, he took in her frazzled appearance and was shocked.

Her normally immaculate hair was shoved into a messy bun placed haphazardly on top of her head. She was dressed in sweats (altogether inappropriate for a teacher), and her face seemed to have acquired about 50 new wrinkles over the space of the one day she was absent.

Louis exchanged a confused look with Harry at seeing their teacher like this. Before he could get a word in edgewise to Harry, Ms. Henney started speaking.

“Alright, I know all of you have already chosen your topics for the project,” She began, her voice stressed and tight. “If you have any questions about your topic, come and see me and we’ll work them out. If not, you can use this period to work on the projects.”

With that, she collapsed into her chair, pulled out her phone, and began tapping on it furiously.

Harry leaned in close to Louis. “Are you sure this is a good day to ask about the topic change? I mean, she doesn’t seem to be in the most charitable of moods.” He murmured. Louis met his gaze and shrugged.

“It’s as good a day as any. Plus she likes me, so maybe we’ll get lucky.” He paused as he stooped down to dig through his papers, finally coming to their horrendous project they’d worked on last night. “Well, wish me good luck,” he said as he stood up, holding onto the project.

Harry gave him a close-mouthed smile. “Good luck,” he replied, and he watched Louis make his way over to Ms. Henney.

As Louis approached Ms. Henney, she began tapping even more quickly on her phone, frantically scrolling through seemingly endless pages. 

“Hello Ms. Henney! How’re things?” Louis asked jovially, injecting happiness into his tone. Somehow, he didn’t think his teacher appreciated it.

Barely looking up from her phone, Ms. Henney replied, “Terrible. What do you need, Louis?” 

Not at all surprised by the curtness, Louis cut straight to the chase. “Me and my partner would like a topic change. Strange as it sounds, astrophysics doesn’t seem to be a social studies topic and we’d like a new one.”

At this one, Ms. Henney looked up from her phone and fixed Louis with a vicious stare. “You want a topic change?” she asked incredulously.

Louis nodded slowly, confused by her admittedly hostile reaction. She had let him have tons of topic changes over the course of the year, and he couldn’t quite understand what was different about this one.

“We’ve tried this one, it is altogether way too hard.” Louis slapped his project onto his teacher’s desk. She took one look at the clearly bullshit papers and snorted.

“Louis I’m afraid you’re just going to have to stick with this one. I honestly have no time to help you prepare another topic.”

“But it’ll literally take two seconds!” Louis protested, forgetting his manners. He turned his head and shot Harry a desperate look; this wasn’t going at all as he’d planned.

“Thats two seconds that I don’t have, Louis!” His teacher cried back, suddenly looking as though she would burst into tears.

Seeing his teacher’s near breakdown brought Louis directly into older brother mode. Forgetting about the project dilemma momentarily, he pulled up a chair and looked directly into Ms. Henney’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked her quietly, speaking as if he were talking to a friend.

“The band that was supposed to play for my wedding, which is in FIVE DAYS might I add, just cancelled on me! And now I have no one to play for me at my wedding reception. I’m screwed,” she moaned, burying her face in her hands and tossing her phone onto the desk.

Louis’ face contorted in sympathy as he realized what kind of stress she must be going through. “You don’t know of any other bands that would be able to play?”

“No!” she cried. “They’re all booked for this weekend! Apparently it’s a busy weekend to get married,” she replied miserably. “So I’m really sorry but I just don’t have the time to help you come up with a new topic and discuss it with you, I’m so sorry Louis. Please don’t ask me about it again. However, if you happen to know of any bands that would be able to play at my wedding on short notice, please let me know.”

With that, Ms. Henney returned to her cell phone and began tapping on it again.

Shit. SHIT. Louis really didn’t want to have to do a project on astrophysics, whether it would help him get close to Harry or not. He searched his brain frantically to find a way out of it.

Who did he know that had a good voice? Louis himself liked to sing and he knew he had a decent voice, but he rarely sang in front of other people. He knew Zayn had a good voice, but the boy would never sing in front of strangers, let alone at a wedding. All of a sudden, Louis had a flashblack to last night when he and Harry had sung “Call Me Maybe,” and had a sudden stroke of genius.

“Ms. Henney, Harry and I could sing at your wedding.”

His teacher looked up from her phone in shock. “You? And Harry? Styles?” she asked incredulously. 

“Yeah! We could sing at your wedding instead of doing the project!” Louis was warming to his own idea, and plowed on in spite of his teacher’s blatantly gaping mouth. “I’m not a bad singer, I’m pretty sure Harry has a great voice, and we could find someone to accompany us. Plus, I really don’t want to do this project. Please Miss. Henney, it’s a win-win situation!”

It was an absurd offer, Louis knew this. It was also one that he knew Ms. Henney would latch onto. And despite the ridiculousness of the whole situation, he could already see Ms. Henney wavering, and considering his offer.

“Have you or Harry ever sang in front of people?” Ms. Henney asked, biting her lip.

“Oh, loads of times,” Louis outright lied.

“And Harry would be okay with this? You’re sure?” 

They both looked over to where Harry was sitting. Louis shot Harry a large grin, encouraging him to smile back. Harry smiled back a bit tentatively.

Louis beamed back at Ms. Henney. “See that? He’s smiling! That can only mean that he’s ecstatic at the idea!”

His teacher stared at him. “Louis, he’s sitting all the way across the room. There’s no way he could have heard anything we’ve been saying.”

“Well I’m sure if he could hear, he’d be bouncing off the walls with excitement,” he huffed. “Please, just consider it?”

It took all of two minutes for Ms. Henney to come to a decision.

——

Harry watched the entire exchange between Ms. Henney and Louis with trepidation. He hoped Louis was working with his natural charm to get Ms. Henney to change their assignment.

Secretly, Harry had little doubt that Louis would succeed. The boy simply had too much charisma- saying no to him was close to impossible.

Harry supposed it had a lot to do with the eyes. It was hard to explain, but Louis’ eyes were quite unlike any he’d ever come across. 

It wasn’t so much the color (which was admittedly a very nice shade of blue) as it was the gaze itself- when you spoke with Louis he had a way of looking at you like you were the only thing that mattered.

Harry liked being looked at like he mattered. He wondered if he was getting attached, or if it was even possible to get attached to someone so quickly. 

Lost in his thoughts, Harry almost didn’t notice when the object of his musings bounded over to him. Louis sat sown hard in the chair and flung an arm around Harry’s shoulder, causing a swarm of nerves to erupt in Harry’s stomach.

He tried not to tense under Louis’ arm as he turned to face the blue eyed boy. 

“So what’d she say?” Harry asked, struggling to keep his voice steady and his face from blushing.

Louis’ arm tightened around him momentarily as he felt the shock wash over him at Louis’ next words: “We aren’t doing the project at all! Instead, we’re going to be singing at her wedding!”


	7. Chapter 6

Shock and confusion filled Harry’s entire being. How in the hell could they have gone from doing a project to singing at a teacher’s wedding? Harry stared back at Louis with wide eyes, honestly not understanding.

Louis gazed back at him, still grinning madly at the news. “Your eyes are green,” he said randomly. Harry swallowed hard.

“So I’ve noticed. Wait, why are we singing at a wedding? What the fuck?!”

If Louis noticed Harry’s obvious discomfort at the idea, he didn’t show it.

“Do you actually want to do a project on astrophysics?” He asked Harry. Harry gaped at him.

“Of course not! But what does that have to do with singing at Ms. Henney’s wedding?!”

“Thats the beauty of it! Instead of doing the project, we’re singing at the wedding.”

Harry groaned in frustration. “Why couldn’t you have just chosen another topic?”

“She wouldn’t let me. But just think, Harry! This could be amazing! We could get DISCOVERED!!” Louis seemed pleased at the idea.

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Is getting discovered something you planned on doing in the near future?”

Louis shrugged. “Well, not exactly…”

“Good. Because we aren’t singing at the wedding,” was Harry’s blunt reply.

Louis’ face contorted in confusion. ”But why not? It’s perfectly reasonable.”

“Well for one thing, I can’t sing, I’m a horrible singer.”

“False!” Louis cried. “I heard you last night. You sounded great.”

God dammit, this was why Harry knew he should never try to make friends or hang out with people. They learned things about you that could eventually come back to bite you in the ass. They could use your own information against you.

“Last night, that was nothing.” Harry protested, but Louis waved all his claims away.

“If I say you’re a good singer then you’re a good singer, end of discussion. Any other excuses?”

Harry wracked his brain for reasons other than the main one. 

“Um,” he began, “I’ll be out of town this weekend.”

Louis gazed into his eyes rather deeply, searching for dishonesty.

“Really?” he asked. Harry tried to keep up the lie but found that he didn’t like telling lies to Louis Tomlinson.

He stared back into Louis’ eyes for a moment before giving up. “No,” he sighed out his confession. “Not really. I just, I don’t want to do it, yeah?” 

Louis’ eyes looked at him for a bit longer, still trying to figure out why Harry didn’t want to do this. Honestly, the boy couldn’t be that shy. He’d sung in front of Louis when they barely knew each other, so as far as Louis was concerned right now, Harry was just making up excuses.

“What’s holding you back, Harry?” Louis asked quietly, gently. Harry found that he couldn’t break eye contact, no matter how hard he tried. He felt heat rising into his cheeks, settling into a nice blush for reasons he was unaware of.

Harry’s blush deepened when he realized that Louis’ arm was still around him, and Louis was absently tugging playfully on his shirt sleeve, just the slightest bit.

For some reason, the fact that Louis Tomlinson was fiddling with his clothes caused Harry’s brain to get curiously cloudy- he honestly didn’t know where his ability to think like a normal human being had gone.

He felt the words tumble uncontrollably out of his mouth as Louis’ gaze grew concerned.

“I don’t like weddings, I don’t like them.” The words slipped out before Harry could stop them. He blamed Louis’s eyes.

To say Louis looked surprised would be an understatement. Adorable bewilderment spread across the other boy’s face at Harry’s words.

“You don’t like weddings? Why not?”

Shit. Harry shouldn’t have said anything. 

“……….the food’s shit,” He offered lamely. Louis didn’t look like he bought it for a second.

Sure enough, “Nice effort. Try again,” were the boy’s next words.

Harry gulped. “I just don’t like what they stand for, okay?” Oh god what was he DOING sitting here spilling his guts to some kid he’d never spoken to before yesterday, what was he thinking?! ”My mom remarried a few years ago to a total douchebag so weddings aren’t exactly my favorite things.”

Louis hand gripped gripped his shoulder in sympathy as he offered the curly haired boy a kind look. “Im sorry mate, that’s bad luck,” he said quietly. “I can’t imagine what that must be like, but it can’t be fun, can it?”

Harry shook his head, finally ripping his gaze from Louis’. The moment their eyes lost contact the weight of what Harry was doing crashed down on his shoulders. 

Why was he doing this? Why was he telling this to Louis, and why did he trust him with something he hadn’t even told to Niall? Niall had found out on his own about this stuff months after he and Harry had been friends, and now here Harry was offering it up to some stranger.

And what the hell was Louis doing, anyway? How was he making Harry feel so comfortable with him?

Truthfully, Harry knew at the back of his mind that he was already in way over his head. 

Louis leaned in a bit closer to Harry, catching his gaze once more.

“But we don’t have to go to the actual wedding, Harry. We’ll be at the reception, we can just view it as a regular party. Would you be able to do that?”

Harry couldn’t find it in him to say no after that.

——

After school, Harry found himself at Niall’s locker again.

“I’m not doing the project,” he blurted out.

Niall burst into laughter. “Gonna take the zero?” he asked, grinning at Harry.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck, screwing up his face in discomfort. He still didn’t know how Louis had gotten him to agree with this. 

“Um, actually, we’re sort of, um, singing, yeah? At Ms. Henney’s wedding, instead of the, yeah, doing the project,” he stammered.

Niall’s laugh cut out as he stopped packing his backpack to stare at Harry. 

“What the fuck?!” he cried.

“That’s what I said! It’s completely insane! But it’s what’s happening.”

“Mate, that is absolutely the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Harry glared at the Irish boy. “Not really. You know I don’t like weddings.”

Niall sighed, resuming his packing. “Harry I know Robin is a giant douche and I’m so, so sorry that you had to put up with his crap all the time, but you shouldn’t let him ruin the entire concept of marriage for you,” he said.

“I mean, I’ve been to loads of weddings,” he continued, “And they’ve all been really fun. Tons of food, tons of alcohol. It’s great.”

Harry leaned back against the locker next to Niall’s, suddenly too weary to even stand up straight. “I know the weddings themselves can be fun, it’s just… I can’t really describe it,” he said. “Its like, almost setting yourself up for failure. There’s no way to know that you’ll always be happy like that. There’s always a risk.”

Niall finished packing up his bags, hoisted his back over his shoulder and turned to face Harry.

“I won’t pretend to know everything about ruined marriages and spouses who turn out to be not who you thought they were,” he began, “But I wish that wasn’t your view on marriage, mate. They can be right great, yeh know. Me parents been married for what, 20 years now? They love each other.”

Harry sighed. “I know, mate. I’m so happy they do. But it’s more the what if factor. Anyway, we don’t have to talk about this. You going home today?”

Niall shook his head as they began to walk down the hall together. 

“Nah man, me and Zayn are working on our project in the library today.”

Harry nodded. “Sucks. Didn’t you get an easy topic though?”

“Yeah. Plus, Zayn is actually a pretty cool dude, so I’m not too annoyed. Group work all depends on the partner you have.”

“Too true. See you later,” Harry replied, clapping Niall on the back as they arrived at the library.

Niall turned to walk into the library, but Harry was seized with a sudden idea and called him back. 

“Niall! D’you wanna do it with us?” Harry knew it was a shot in the dark, but he figured he’d try.

Niall turned back and shot Harry a look. “What, sing with you guys?” At Harry’s desperate nod, Niall sighed.

“I’m not the best with singing in front of large crowds,” Niall muttered. 

“Neither am I! Come on Ni, it’ll be great! Besides, you said it yourself. There will be tons of food and booze there. You don’t even have to sing! You can bring your guitar and just play that, it’ll be great! Come on mate, help me out with this one.” Harry was grasping at straws, he knew this, but he really wanted Niall to go with them.

Niall looked around, grabbing the back of his head and rubbing his hair furiously in thought. Catching Harry’s gaze, he shrugged and turned to go once more.

“I’ll think about it, alright? See you,” he said, and walked into the library.

Once Niall departed, Harry turned around, shouldering his backpack, and walked towards an exit, begrudgingly ready to walk home.

—— 

“Hey, you!” A familiar voice sounded in his ear. It was, of course, Louis. Harry turned around to face Louis, a smile already adorning his features.

“Hi,” he replied, falling into step with the blue eyed boy.

Louis threw an arm around his shoulder, and Harry, fighting down a blush, wondered if this was going to become a common occurrence. 

Before Louis could get a word in edgewise, Harry asked him something that had been on his mind for a little while.

“Hey Louis, just out of curiosity, why did Zayn want to work with Niall and not you randomly, anyway? It can’t be that he’s sick of you,” Harry asked, sliding his eyes over to meet Louis’.

For some inexplicable reason, Louis’ face flushed dark red at the question and Harry stared in wonder. He hadn’t even known Louis was capable of blushing; the other boy was usually completely on top of his game.

“Um,” Louis stuttered out his beginning, ” uh, he’s mad at me, yeah, because um, I, last week, I, uh, killed ah, his ….. Goldfish…?”

By the time he was finished, his face was so red that Harry actually began to worry for his health and physical safety.

Although it was rather blatant that Louis was lying, he couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, let’s pretend that’s true. Honestly, breathe Louis. You look like you’re about to start hyperventilating.”

When Louis got himself back under control, he cleared his throat and grinned at Harry.

“So anyway, I was thinking,” Louis began, “You should come over to my house again today. That way we can begin thinking of songs to use when we make our big break!”

Harry chuckled in spite of himself. “We’re singing at a wedding, Lou. Not Madison Square Garden.”

“Lou?” Louis asked, a smile lighting up his features. 

Harry flushed slightly. “It’s your name, isn’t it?” he said somewhat defensively. Honestly, the nickname had slipped out by accident! It wasn’t his fault Louis somehow managed to disable his verbal filter. 

Thankfully, Louis let it slide without another jibe at Harry. Still smiling, he continued their previous conversation.

“Even if we aren’t singing anywhere prestigious, we should have good songs. You know? No one should be bored. We could play like, inspirational banjo music!”

Harry snorted. “No one will be bored, trust me. Tons of alcohol and food, there will be plenty to do. And there will be no banjo. You gotta draw the line somewhere.”

Louis pouted for a little while, but it wasn’t long before he perked up again.

”So, how about it? Want to come back to my house? My sisters asked about you again this morning,” he added, and smirked at the shock on Harry’s face. “They asked when you’d be back to play with them again. Don’t really want to keep them waiting, they can get pretty crazy.”

Harry couldn’t believe Louis’ sisters had asked about him. They’d barely played for a few minutes, and they still wanted him again. It was actually a really nice feeling, being wanted.

He hated letting Louis and the girls down, but Robin had been particularly angry last night when he’d gotten home (drunk of course) and despite Harry’s efforts, the house had looked like it hadn’t been cared for in months. He’d made it clear that if Harry wasn’t home and cleaning by the time he go home, there would be hell to pay.

Harry hated having to adhere to Robin’s damned stupid rules, but there was little to nothing about it that he could do. 

“Can’t today, sorry,” he said, kind of avoiding Louis’ eyes. He did not want to be questioned on this. “I think I can tomorrow though.”

Louis nodded, briefly squeezing Harry’s shoulder before removing his arm. Harry’s neck and shoulders felt strangely cold and empty without Louis’ arm there, but he told himself he didn’t miss it.

And he almost believed it.

“So, tomorrow then,” Louis said. “Let me have your number so we can discuss ideas tonight anyway.”

They stopped at the school exit to get each others numbers. After they exchanged numbers, Harry smiled his goodbye to Louis, whose gaze curiously dipped momentarily down to his mouth. After a second, his slightly glassy gaze returned to Harry’s, and he returned the smile.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Harry,” Louis said. He then turned on his heel and walked away in the direction of the bus station.

Harry, saying bye, watched the other boy walk away for a second before departing himself.

During his walk home, he realized that he’d forgotten to tell Louis that Niall might be playing his guitar at the wedding with them.

He got his phone out and typed out a message to Louis.

To: Louis

Oh, I forgot to tell you. Niall is gonna try to come to the wedding with us and play his guitar. -Harry

Not too much later, Harry’s stomach squirmed when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He mentally berated himself for his girlish reactions and reached for his phone.

To: Harry

Sounds good! I’ll try to get Zayn and Liam to come as well, they shouldn’t be too hard to convince though. The prospect of free food and beer is hard for anyone to resist! -Louis

They continued texting as Harry walked home, and he was again and again shocked at how easy it was for Louis to make him actually laugh out loud from even a simple text.

Everything with Louis was easy. Everything. Except for the occasional stomach squirm that Harry got whenever he was around. But Harry was fairly sure that was indigestion, so he wasn’t worried.

When Harry finally arrived at home, he immediately went upstairs and dropped his backpack off there. He didn’t want to take any chances with having the house be utterly untidy when Robin showed up.

His trainers clunking against the steps as he descended again, Harry noted the dust on the walls and banister with disgust. The place was pretty much unfit to live in, and Harry had to do something about it.

He decided to start with the kitchen. Harry spent the next two hours of his day scrubbing the grime off the floor, getting rid of the empty boxes and packages in the cabinets, and spraying an old bottle of Fabreze around the room, trying to get rid of the acrid smell.

The only bright spot in Harry’s horrible afternoon was the fact that it was punctuated at regular intervals by Louis’ texts, which more often than not sent him into rather embarrassing fits of giggles.

When Harry had finished with the kitchen, he was beat. He didn’t want to clean anymore. If he was honest, he wanted to shower. The kitchen had been absolutely disgusting and Harry just wanted to feel clean.

While Harry waited for the shower to warm up, he caught sight of his reflection and was slightly intrigued.

It sounded weird, but he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked into a mirror.

He was quite plain looking, in his own personal opinion. Curly brown hair, run of the mill. Pale skin, tall, thin. Typical. Dimples. Not so typical, but still, they weren’t anything to be proud of. He had deep green eyes, but he bet a lot of other people had green eyes as well.

He wondered what Louis thought of his plainness.

As Harry got into the shower, he let out a giant breath of pure relief, the stress of the day melting away from his tense shoulders in the comforting heat. 

He tipped his head back, letting himself be soaked by the water, feeling its innate warmth deep in his bones.

Harry didn’t know how long he was in the shower for, but it had seemed like only a few minutes when the door to the bathroom suddenly was met with a huge pounding.

“GET OUT OF THE GODDAMN SHOWER WASTING WATER.” Robin’s furious voice boomed through the door, words slurred and garbled. Harry’s breath rattled in his chest as he listened to his step father’s boots stomp down the hall to his room.

Harry got out of the shower as quickly as he could, hurriedly wrapping the towel around himself. Practically running down the hall to escape Robin for as long as he could, Harry locked himself in his room, breathing out a sigh of relief.

He hated that man. Hated.

When Harry was dressed, he saw that Louis had texted him again. The thought that Louis was still texting him meant that the other boy was still thinking about him. Harry felt the corners of his mouth tilting upwards, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He was still smiling when he came downstairs, and began to prepare dinner for himself and Robin. He started frying eggs in the pan, as that was basically the only food that he could find in the house. It wasn’t much, and he’d probably be hungry that night, but he wasn’t starving and that’s what mattered.

Harry was still smiling at Louis’ texting by the time that Robin came downstairs. 

“What you smiling at?” he asked Harry loudly, stupidly. Harry felt the waves of discomfort wash over him, suffocating him in the stench of the booze emanating from Robin’s very skin.

Harry shrugged, trying not to provoke any real anger that night. He would have succeeded, had Robin not looked into the living room.

“WHY DIDNT YOU CLEAN?” Harry sighed in annoyance at the appearance if Robin’s rage, and didn’t answer until a book struck the wall next to his head, clearly having been thrown by Robin.

“I’ll do it after dinner,” Harry muttered. He could feel the man approaching him from behind.

“Damn right you will,” the drunken man slurred in his face. “You live under this roof, you earn your keep. Maybe things would be different if you hadn’t killed Anne.”

Harry’s back stiffened horribly at this, even though it was basically a normal remark from Robin. As the man stumbled off in the general direction of the stairs, Harry’s head bowed as he thought about that night so long ago, when Anne’s life had been claimed.

Harry wondered if he really was the cause of her death. He used to not think so, but in the past few years he wasn’t sure.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, but his heart didn’t skip a beat. And it remained in his pocket, while his brain clouded with anger at Robin and guilt over Anne’s death.


	8. Chapter 7

The next morning, Louis took it upon himself to get to class early and take the seat next to where Harry usually sat. On the other side of Harry’s currently empty chair, Niall shot Louis a questioning look, but didn’t say anything. The boy’s droopy eyes and slow, even breathing suggested that he was mere threads away from sleep.

When Zayn trudged into the room moments later, he headed over to his seat. When he got there, he plopped down and looked around confusedly, most likely wondering why he was alone. Louis watched the scene with an amused fondness, and decided to take mercy on his tired friend.

“Oi! Princess! Over here!” Louis called to Zayn, who flipped him a friendly middle finger before ambling over to Louis’ new seat.

“Why’re we sitting over here?” Zayn mumbled around a yawn. Louis smiled.

“Wanted to sit next to Harry. Here you take Harry’s usual seat so you can be next to Niall and I’ll be next to Harry.”

Zayn didn’t even question him on this. Honestly, there was no point anymore. He supposed he should be making more of an effort to keep Harry and Louis apart, but at the moment he couldn’t be arsed. He somehow got his ass off the chair and shuffled to the seat on the other side of Louis.

Louis zoned out as Zayn sighed out a greeting to Niall, who returned his hello with an equally sleepy one. Louis was grateful that Zayn had reached out and made the gesture of friendship with Niall, because otherwise none of this would have been possible. He’d texted the tanned boy yesterday after Zayn met up with Niall and was pleased to find out that the Irish boy was well liked by his mate. Louis was happy that Zayn was gaining a friend out of this.

The bell rang and there was no sign of Harry. The seat next to Louis felt glaringly empty. He wondered idly if Harry had spontaneously up and moved to Guatemala or something. This early in the day, anything seemed possible. And probable.

About five minutes into class, Harry finally arrived, trying unsuccessfully to sneak quietly through the doors. Sneaking around trying to be quiet and slick was difficult to pull off with Harry’s slightly clumsy movements. And it was something that Louis definitely did not think was adorable. Nope, definitely not.

After an awkward apology to the teacher, Harry made his way over to his usual seat. Barely hesitating a second at the changed seating arrangements, Harry collapsed into the seat next to Louis and immediately buried his head in his arms, which were folded in front of him on the desk.

Louis observed the boy on his left, wondering what was wrong. After a few moments, Harry lifted his head slowly and glanced around the room. His gaze came to rest on Louis’.

Louis’ mouth was suddenly bone dry. Harry looked completely exhausted. His eyes were half lidded, glazed with sleep, and utterly warm and open. In addition to this, the boy’s chocolate-colored hair was even curlier than usual, his lips were parted the slightest bit, and there was an endearing line on his cheek that one gets from sleeping on a pillow crease. 

In that instant, Louis didn’t know what came over him. All he knew was that he wanted to steal this moment of Harry’s and keep it with him forever.

Before Louis had the chance to be astonished with his own sketchiness, Harry yawned, a small keening sound exiting his mouth as he did so.

Not liking the feelings that Harry was currently invoking in him, Louis broke eye contact with Harry’s captivating stare.

Louis did not like the direction his thoughts were heading in, no he did not. He recognized the beginnings of a crush here- something he normally welcomed with open arms. However, not when the object of his affections was named Harry Styles.

But, this wasn’t a big deal. All he had to do was squash down his own feelings while making Harry develop his own. He figured it wouldn’t be to hard to do.

Louis had a strategy of seduction. He’d known right away that seducing Harry Styles would be different than any other girl he’d ever gone after, so he’d modified his plans and formed a scheme that was admittedly, underhanded.

Louis’ plan was one of very abject subtlety. It was all in the little things. A little touch here, a locking of eyes for a little too long there. Louis was an affectionate guy to begin with, so he had little to no problems carrying out his plans. 

That is, until that moment when he realized he was dangerously close to having a crush on Harry.

Now, this was just fucking stupid for multiple reasons. The first one was obvious- they’d known each other for two days. Three days previously, Louis hadn’t spoken to the kid a day in his life yet. 

Second, Harry wasn’t like most people. He was shy and awkward and had the most fucking amazing eyes and dimples and Louis didn’t know what to make of it.

Third, Harry was the subject of a bet between Louis and Zayn. It was rather detrimental to have romantic feelings towards someone who was basically a puppet who was being lied to.

So, Louis stuck to his trusty (and sometimes extremely misguided) motto, (which, funnily enough was not YOLO) which was to push everything that stressed him out to the back of his mind, to be examined on a later day i.e. never.

He was brought back to the present by the soft rustling of Harry’s papers, as the boy reluctantly pulled out looseleaf to take notes on the class.

Stealing a piece of looseleaf from Harry’s stash, Louis scribbled out a note to the other boy and slid it across the desk.

Why were you late? You look tired

He returned Harry’s dry stare after he read the message. Grabbing a pencil of his own, Harry wrote a message in return.

Overslept. Thanks, mummy

Louis wrote out a quick response.

I believe the correct word you’re looking for is ‘daddy’ ;)

The message was innocent enough, but the wink face Louis included brought on an entirely different connotation.

As he read the note, Harry’s face contorted in amusement, and it looked as though he was biting the inside of his cheek hard so as to not alert the teacher of their note passing.

Harry slid the paper back to Louis, evidently having no response to this. Louis however was genuinely curious, and wrote the boy another note.

Really though, you look tired.. Everything okay?

As he read this note, a muscle jumped in Harry’s jaw. He almost seemed confused by the question, as though he was unsure of how to even answer it.

He glanced up at Louis, who met his green-eyed gaze steadily. Louis raised his eyebrows in question, and Harry eventually gave a stiff, unsure nod.

Louis wasn’t fully reassured, but their teacher began to get suspicious so he was forced to stop their silent conversation. For the time being it was over, but not forgotten.

——

When it was time for lunch, Louis and Liam were left to their own devices, as Zayn was working on his project with Niall and had warned them he wouldn’t be at lunch. This struck Louis as odd as Zayn was never one to be overly attentive with homework, but he guessed it was more the company that had Zayn working than anything. He and Niall had apparently hit it off rather well.

“So it’s just you and me,” Liam remarked as Louis plopped down on the chair across from Liam’s.

“S’pose so,” Louis replied. “Zayn has moved onto bigger and better things, but don’t fret, old chap. Lusty Louis will always be here to save the day!” 

Liam shot him a look. “Mate, you know I love you, but you are just fucking weird, yeh know?”

Louis nodded solemnly. “Admit it, you love it.”

As Liam snorted, Louis cast a look around the cafeteria. Spotting Harry sitting alone, he gasped and turned back to Liam.

“I’m gonna go invite Harry to our table! More opportunities to be friends, yeah.”

Liam made ‘no’ gestures with his hands as he struggled to quickly finish chewing and swallowing. When he was free to speak, he said, “No, don’t. I wanted to talk to you about this, when Zayn’s not here.”

This piqued Louis’ curiosity. 

“… Are you trying to keep secrets from Zayn?” Louis asked cautiously, not liking where this was potentially heading. Thankfully, the other boy was quick to deny this, shaking his head.

“No, not really. I just wanted to talk to you about this, away from Zayn.”

Louis’ brow raised. “Well, go on then,” he said.

Liam cleared his throat and began. “I’ve known you for a long time now, Lou. And I know that this won’t be easy for you; you get attached to people very easily… Harry isn’t the only one that has potential to get hurt in this bet.”

Louis didn’t bother trying to hide his confusion. “What’re you trying to say, mate?” he asked.

Liam sighed. “I don’t want you to get attached too fast and have it turn out that Harry doesn’t like you at all. You know?I don’t want your feelings to get hurt.”

“Liam, this is all a game to me, ” Louis replied, not entirely sure if he was telling the truth or not. “I won’t get attached, and besides how would I? It’s only been two days since I first spoke to him. Don’t worry about me, Liam.”

Liam stared hard at him for a few moments. Louis felt a bit hot around the collar- he wasn’t accustomed to being stared at this closely by his mates. Also, he hadn’t been completely obvious with Liam, and he suspected that the other boy knew.

Finally, Liam relented. “Alright, Louis. If you’re sure. Anyway, tell me about how the past two days of the bet have been going.” 

As Louis began to tell his story of things, he found himself wandering off topic to Harry himself, talking about the enigmas the curly haired lad presented.

At Liam’s raised eyebrow and unreadable look, Louis stopped his chatter. 

“What?” he asked.

“Not getting attached, eh?” Was all Liam said.

Neither spoke for the remainder of lunch.

——

After school, Louis once again found Harry in the hall walking down the corridor, a few yards ahead of him.

“Harry!” he called out, causing a few heads to turn questioningly in his direction. He shot the few curious onlookers a cheeky grin as he pushed through them to meet up with Harry, who’d turned around at Louis’ inquiry.

“Hey Lou,” Harry said. Louis noted with satisfaction and something else unidentifiable that all the awkwardness Harry felt toward blurting out a nickname for Louis yesterday had dissipated. “What’s up?”

Louis tossed an arm around Harry’s shoulder. He knew that in the last two days he’d spent an inordinate amount of time with an arm around the other lad, but he had his reasons. One was obviously part of his subtle seduction, and another was just because he enjoyed it. He decided to not look too far into it.

“Not much, except that you’re coming to my house today!” Louis said cheerfully, briefly squeezing Harry’s shoulder. Harry turned to sneak a glance at Louis, and ended up trying to squash a smile at the charming expression on Louis’ face.

“You’re sure about that? Also,” Harry began, biting his lip slightly and losing his playful tone, “Is this something you do a lot?”

“What, force people to come to my house so we can discuss wedding songs? I’d say that one’s a solid no.”

Harry chuckled in spite of his best efforts of stifling himself. “No, I mean. Like. Putting your arm around people.” Harry didn’t know why he’d just asked the most awkward question in the history of time, it had basically slipped out like it had a mind of its own. 

However, Louis didn’t skip a beat. “Nope,” he replied simply, with an unfathomable smile. “So anyway,” he continued, noticing the slight flush that was making its way up Harry’s neck, “I’ll take your blatant refusal to give me a straight answer as a yes. Let’s go!”

Before he quite knew what was happening, Harry found a hand in his, which was tugging him along rather quickly. He tried apologizing to the people he flat out crashed into, but after the seventh that maybe they should just apologize to themselves for being in the way. 

Louis led Harry to the bus station about two blocks from school, and they spotted on the bus that stopped near Louis’ house. They clambered on the bus, having sprinted there and nearly missed it. They’d run the entire way firmly holding each other’s hands, which was something both of them liked more than either was willing to admit.

“I didn’t know you took the bus to school,” Harry said to Louis once they were settled and their breathing had returned to normal.

Louis nodded offhandedly. “Only have one car and my mum takes it to work. I could get rides with Zayn or Liam, but they live in the opposite direction of the school than me, so I’m obviously not gonna ask them for a ride.”

Harry accepted this with a grunt of acknowledgement, and they sat in comfortable silence for the rest of the trip.

When they finally arrived at Louis’ house, he turned to smile at Harry while turning the key in the lock. Harry noted with a strange tug in his stomach that the key turned perfectly without any trouble.

“Just remember, my sisters will be here,” Louis was saying. “They haven’t shut up about you since Monday, so be prepared, yeah?”

Louis’ heart actually stuttered in his chest when he saw Harry’s reaction to his words. The boy was staring ahead of him, seeming to not want Louis to notice how delighted he was. But it was obvious, in the way his eyes scintillated and his lips twisted with effort to conceal a smile.

“That’s okay,” he replied as they stepped into the house. “I like your sisters, they’re adorable.”

Louis cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled through them like a microphone. “I’M HOME, I’VE BROUGHT WINSTON!”

As if on cue, two little blonde haired pumpkins came rushing to the front hall of the house, yelling joyfully, decked out in the same princess outfits they’d been in the first time Harry met them. 

They made a beeline for the two of them but stopped when they got close- they seemed to be having trouble deciding who to hug first. Louis laughed and made the decision for them, scooping them up in his arms, motioning with a jerk of his head for Harry to follow him upstairs.

Once inside Louis’ bedroom, he set his sisters down on the floor to the tune of squeals and whoops of delight. To say they enjoyed being carried by Louis was an understatement.

They tried to scramble up onto the bed, but were plucked off by Louis’ deft hands.

“Sorry loves, the bed is for me and Harry today,” he said, and winked at Harry when he realized how dirty this sounded. Threw in a crooked smirk too, for good measure.

Louis was fascinated by just how red Harry’s face became. He made a mental note to add to his seduction techniques- slyly make mildly sexual remarks involving him.

“You two can stay in the room today if you promise me you won’t bother us too much,” Louis told the twins, who regarded his words as law. They nodded fervently and took very quiet seats on the floor.

Just as they had on Monday, Harry and Louis set up camp on louis’ bed, got out his laptop and began brainstorming ideas.

“What exactly does one sing at a wedding?” Louis muttered to himself off-handedly, looking through his playlist on iTunes.

“How about Rihanna?!” he continued, looking excitedly at Harry. “Nothing puts you in a wedding mood quite like ‘S&M’!”

Harry couldn’t help himself- he let out a burst of laughter, but he quickly covered his face with his hands. Louis did not appreciate this at all- he couldn’t see the dimples if Harry covered them up, and come on! The side view was the best!

They began researching good songs to play for the wedding that used accompaniment by guitar so that Niall could play, but they weren’t having much luck.

“We could play ‘Ave Maria,’” Harry remarked. 

Louis quite liked this idea, which he told Harry. However, he decided that they shouldn’t have more than one slow slow song, because they were playing at a wedding reception after all, not the wedding itself.

They ended up deciding on a few modern pop songs, but in reality, had no clue how they were supposed to figure this out.

“How are we supposed to play pop music in front of a whole entire wedding reception when all we have is two singers and a guitarist?” Harry asks Louis, his tone laced with panic.

Louis bit his lip in confusion. “I’m not sure, to be quite honest with you,” he muttered. Harry groaned and ran a frustrated hand through his curls.

Before Harry could say another word, he felt his hair suddenly yanked to the side, grabbed by small hands.

Apparently, from what he could gather from the high-pitched giggles, Louis’ sisters had continued their quest in combing Harry’s curls. He heard whispers of ‘ball,’ ‘Winston,’ and ‘prince?’. He made a ‘help me’ face at Louis, but the boy merely chuckled and let it happen.

Louis suddenly groaned and all but threw the laptop away from him. “Ugh, I REALLY don’t want to do this,” he groaned, laying back in the bed.

He missed the obvious dip of Harry’s eyes as they sought out the strip of skin Louis’ shirt revealed when he collapsed.

“Can’t we just figure it out tomorrow?” He whined, gazing imploringly at Harry, who was having a bit of a crisis right now.

Harry’s crisis being, two little adorable monsters were ripping his hair out, Louis was begging him for something, he was on Louis’ bed, and Louis’ stomach was showing. He had to force himself together and struggled to find words.

“Um, I guess we can ask Ms. Henney tomorrow if she has any ideas,” Harry somehow found himself saying. He silently congratulated himself on not sounding too much like an idiot.

All of a sudden Harry remembered Robin and nearly had a panic attack- what would he do if when he got home Harry wasn’t there?? Harry’s heart rose to rapid staccato beats as he considered the rage Robin would fly into.

Louis noticed Harry’s face suddenly contort with worry and reached over to place a hand on his arm. “Everything alright Harry?” he asked.

Harry’s eyes rose to meet his, and the worry drained out of them. 

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice came out scratchy. “Thought I had somewhere to be, but I just remembered it’s fine today.”

Louis’s eyebrows rose. “This have anything to do with why you were late this morning, why you seemed a bit off?”

Harry’s eyes shot up to his questioningly. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “But it’s fine now.”

Louis felt relief coarse through his veins. “Good.” He reached over playfully and pulled his sisters off of Harry’s hair. 

“Oi, lay off of Harry’s hair, yeah? Play with mine instead,” he said to his sisters kindly. As he said this, he cheekily ran his own hand through Harry’s hair. He made it seem offhand, like he did this all the time, when in actuality he did not. He was taken aback by how soft Harry’s hair was- he’d expected it to be slightly coarse.

If Louis enjoyed having his hand in Harry’s hair, it was safe to say Harry enjoyed it too, judging by the way his eyes closed momentarily of their own accord.

Sitting there on his bed with Harry, and his sisters combing through his own hair, Louis felt a happy bubble of warmth grow inside of him. It felt natural, safe, as though they’d spent a lifetime doing this. And Louis found that he never wanted it to change.


	9. Chapter 8

When Louis walked into school the next morning, he didn’t expect himself to turn right back around and practically stalk/sprint after his social studies teacher all the way to her car.

But, for some reason, that’s exactly what he found himself doing.

“Ms. Henney!” Louis called after her. He’d caught a glimpse of his red-haired teacher flying out the front door of the school just as he was walking in, and she had all of her stuff with her- keys, jacket, books, purse.

She looked like she was leaving the school what with the beeline she was making towards the parking lot, and judging by her harried expression, it wasn’t likely that she’d be returning to teach.

Which meant that Louis wouldn’t have the chance to ask her about the songs they were supposed to sing at her wedding the next day.

Which was why Louis spontaneously threw all thoughts of going to first period out the window and followed quickly after his teacher.

Louis picked up the pace as he shouted her name. His teacher turned around at his shout but barely slowed down in her hurry to get to the car.

“Will you be coming back to school today?” Louis called, still a little bit behind her.

“Definitely not,” came Ms Henney’s stressed response. “I don’t know what in the hell I came to school for when I am getting married tomorrow, I swear I’m losing my mind,” she continued, her voice sounding breathless.

The wind whipped at Louis’ face as he finally caught up to her.

“Wait, before you go I need to ask you questions about what we’re supposed to be singing tomorrow,” he said. “Will it be pop? Rock? Slow songs? We need an agenda, plus we only have two singers and a guitarist so-“

Ms Henney cut him off as they neared her car. “Oh right I forgot to tell you! You aren’t singing at the reception. My fiancé got in touch with one of his friend’s friend, who is a DJ, and they’re gonna handle the music. So you don’t have to worry!”

Louis’ stomach froze. “So we aren’t actually singing then?” he asked incredulously. Ms Henney didn’t skip a beat.

“Thats what I said.”

“Fuck!” Louis didn’t mean to let out an expletive, but really the situation did call for it because he WAS fucked. If he didn’t sing at this wedding, he and Harry would have to do a report (an actual report) on astrophysics and while spending time with Harry would be both helpful and fun, frankly, Louis would rather pull out all his eyelashes than do a report on astrophysics.

Ms Henney barely even batted an eyelash at the spoken curse. “Oh, right. Your project. Um…” she trailed off as they reached her car. Reaching down to jam her key in the lock, Louis looked on anxiously as she thought about what she was going to say.

“You know,” she began thoughtfully as she opened the door and threw all her stuff in the passenger seat, “You guys might just still be in luck.”

Louis felt his heart briefly relax its frantic beating. “What do you mean?”

She got in the car and looked up at him. “Well, we went to the practice ceremony yesterday and the people that the church normally pay to play at weddings were kind of boring and kind of bad at singing-“

“Yeah?!” Louis interjected, unable to help himself. His teacher shot him a look that clearly said “shut up I’m trying to help you” and continued.

“So Instead of doing the project still, you could play a song or two at the actual ceremony if you like,” she concluded, watching to gauge Louis’ reaction.

Well, that was an easy choice. Louis felt his shoulders sag in relief when he heard this- he couldn’t believe his luck.

“Yeah, we can play a song or two at the wedding if you want,” he said, attempting to keep it cool on the outside when on the inside he was jumping around euphorically like a leprechaun on crack.

Ms Henney smiled widely at him and turned the key in the ignition. “Thanks Louis! We’ll talk more tomorrow, just make sure you get to the church early, yeah? I’ve gotta go but I’ll  
be in touch.”

They quickly exchanged cell phone numbers before Ms Henney had to go, and sped off out of the parking lot into the street, cutting many people off and running a few red lights. Louis was certain that she was going about 60 miles over the speed limit, and vaguely admired and respected his teacher a little bit more for being such a badass (and a crazy ass bitch) behind the wheel.

Walking back to the school and feeling much better about the whole ordeal, Louis was ready to start the day and tell Harry about the new plans.

——

When Louis finally got to the school, he had strangely enough, missed first period altogether. He considered skipping school completely and contemplating the mystery of the passage of time, but then remembered that he had to spread the good word.

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and pulled it out as he made his way through the sea of chattering students.

Louis smiled absently when he saw that he had a text from Harry. It read:

To: Louis

I missed you in first period, no one passed me slightly dirty notes all class :( -Harry

Louis let out a chuckle as he remembered their note passing yesterday. He quickly tapped out a reply.

To: Harry

Well I should hope not, that’s my job and my job only! -Lou

Louis pressed send as he reached back to return his phone to his pocket. No less than a second later, he spotted Zayn in the hallway walking the opposite way of him and quickly changed paths so that he might meet up with his friend.

“Hey mate!” Louis said cheerfully to Zayn, who looked like he could use a good night’s sleep and a truckload of straight up caffeine.

“You shouldn’t be so chipper right now, it’s too early for your personality,” Zayn mumbled, yawning and rubbing his eyes tiredly as he trudged along the hall.

Louis on the other hand, put an extra little skip in his step as they walked, just to be annoying.

“How was first period without me?” He asked. Zayn shrugged. 

“You think I was awake to experience the magic?” he asked. Louis snorted.

“Guess not.” 

Zayn’s next words gave Louis a start. “Harry looked pretty lost. Seemed kinda upset that you weren’t there.”

Before Louis could ask Zayn to elaborate, or before he could properly wonder why this caused his heart to jump in his chest, Zayn had sighed out a farewell as they reached the tanned boy’s classroom.

Louis continued blindly down the hallway after Zayn left, thinking about what Zayn had said, feeling triumphant that his hand of friendship had been successful, and firmly suppressing any romantic feelings he was experiencing.

It was draining, repressing emotions. If Louis let himself think about it, which he didn’t often do, he would realize how much easier it would be to just let it go.

But of course, that didn’t happen, so he just continued down the hallway and definitely did not go out of his way to look through the masses for a curly head of soft brown hair.

——

When it was finally lunchtime, Louis was making his way over to his table where Liam was, when he noticed Harry sitting alone once again. Not caring what Liam thought, he immediately texted Harry telling him to come to his table.

After he sent the text, Louis greeted Liam.

“Where’s Zayn?” he asked, perplexed. “Two days in a row, working on a project instead of going to lunch?”

Liam shrugged. “Maybe he’s been drugged? No, hypnotized.”

Louis nodded solemnly. “Hypnotized, it’s gotta be.”

All of a sudden, Zayn appeared out of nowhere, with Niall Horan. 

“Lads! I’ve brought Niall! You know Niall, right?” Zayn spoke the last part to Liam, who looked at Niall over his shoulder and offered a hand for him to shake.

“Yeah, I’m Liam, Zayn’s friend,” he said. Niall shook his hand while Zayn beamed and plopped down next to Liam. Niall took a seat next to Zayn.

Zayn smiled out a greeting to Louis and was about to speak when suddenly a leg appeared next to Louis’ head. Before he knew what was happening, Harry was sliding onto the bench next to Louis.

“Hi,” Harry said to the table at large, but saving a sidelong glance specially for Louis, who smiled back in response. He carefully avoided Liam’s eyes after this.

The rest of the table greeted Harry normally, until-

“Hello muthafuckah hey hi how ya derrrn,” Zayn said in a crackly, low, gravelly voice. 

Louis, shocked, rushed to apologize to Harry about how Zayn was spontaneously socially retarded and how he really wasn’t this rude, but Harry’s next words stopped him.

“It’s Weezy F. Baby comin to take a shit and urine… Yeah,” Harry said in response, to which everyone at the table sat in shocked silence, except for Niall who started frantically eating.

Zayn burst into loud laughter and looked at Louis. “I like this one, he’s a keeper,” he said. 

Harry shrugged bashfully, offering Louis a slight smile. “I went through the obligatory Lil Wayne phase as well,” he said lightly. Louis swallowed hard and grinned back at him, clapping the curly haired boy on the shoulder.

Louis was shocked. Harry hardly seemed like one to listen to rap, much less to curse, but the other boy never ceased to surprise him. He decided to let it go, and tossed an arm about the slightly taller’s boy shoulder.

He pointedly ignored the tingling sensation in his arm where it was brushing against Harry’s curls, and let himself relax into the situation. He liked being around Harry. Plus, he’d never admit it out loud (or barely in his own head), but the boy smelled really good. It wasn’t a scent that Louis had ever encountered before, so he deduced that it was all Harry. Somehow, that made it even more appealing.

Louis turned and looked at Harry, tapping his opposite shoulder as he did so. Harry barely fell for the trick before he turned to face Louis, a faintly amused smile decorating his face.

Before Louis spoke, he took the time to appreciate the fact that slowly, Harry was smiling more and more in his presence. 

And that made him happy. 

“Ive got good news!” he said excitedly. Harry raised his eyebrows and leaned back into Louis’ arm imperceptibly, almost unconsciously.

Louis bit back a smile as he continued. “Ms. Henney said her fiancé found a DJ and he’s gonna be the one playing songs at the reception!”

Harry rolled his eyes and heaved a major sigh at this. “How many times are the plans gonna change?!” he asked incredulously. 

Not pleased that Harry was focusing on the wrong part of the news, Louis gently squeezed Harry’s arm and leaned in a bit closer, noticing how Harry’s face flushed slightly.

 

“Thats not the point babe! The point,” he continued loudly, forcing his face to stay neutral at the adorably shocked look on Harry’s face at the term of endearment, “Is that we no longer have to break our backs trying to figure out what to play at the party! And more importantly, how to play it.”

——

 

Liam, unbeknownst to the rest of the table, was in a fragile state of shock. One might even go so far as to say he was very close to falling off his chair. But Liam was way too dignified to ever let that happen.

He was stupefied at the chemistry Louis and Harry had this early on in their friendship, and the ease with which they treated each other, even though they’d only known each other for a day.

It was the same thing with Zayn and Niall. Niall was known around the school for being a social butterfly (except much more masculine). He was able to make friends at the drop of a hat, with his infectious laugh and smiling blue eyes.

Zayn on the other hand was much more guarded and cautious when it came to making friends. With Louis and Liam he was outgoing and witty, but with other people from school, he affected a quiet, mysterious persona. The tan boy said it added to his appeal, but Liam and Louis both knew that the boy was actually quite shy, and this was the front that he hid behind.

However, watching Zayn and Niall interact with each other was like watching two people who’d been friends for years. They seemed to complement each other perfectly, with Zayn’s natural tendency to step down and let others control the situation and Niall’s loud, carefree personality. 

Liam was happy for Zayn, and Niall too. He was happy they were forming what looked to be a beautiful friendship in so short a time.

However, he was much more concerned with Harry and Louis’ relationship at this point. Harry seemed already to be quite taken with Louis, which was a problem in itself. The bigger problem though, was how taken Louis already was with Harry.

Liam knew that Louis got attached to people unusually quickly. This was all fine normally, except for in this case. Liam could practically see it in his mind, how it would all play out. 

Louis would get attached, find himself TOO attached, notice Harry getting too attached, become scared, and use the bet as an excuse to pull away from Harry in a sadly mistaken effort to save his own feelings from getting hurt.

Liam loved Louis, they’d been friends forever, but the very thought of Louis hurting Harry made him sick for some reason. Liam didn’t want Harry to be a repeat of all of Louis’ girlfriends- a new one every week.

He didn’t think this would be the case though, given that Louis seemed to like Harry already a great deal more than his girlfriends, but this wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Liam could just picture Louis running away right when things started to get serious.

For all the quickly formed attachments, the boy simply didn’t have it in him to commit romantically to someone. 

Now, Liam knew that he was making sweeping assumptions about Louis’ sexuality, which to be frank had always been a bit of a shady topic anyway. But he sort of knew in the back of his mind that Louis wouldn’t discriminate between boys or girls- if he liked someone then he liked them and that was that. However, he didn’t know if Louis shared his lax opinions on Louis’ sexuality.

That would be something Louis needed to figure out on his own. Liam just hoped he wouldn’t hurt Harry in the process because judging by the small, but entirely significant smile playing around Harry’s lips as he fiddled with a fry with Louis’ arm still firmly around his shoulder, the curly haired boy looked like he quite liked Louis already. And Liam didn’t want that to be ruined. Harry looked like he’d taken enough of a beating by the hand of life, and Louis didn’t need to contribute to that.

——

Louis, having said this to Harry, turned to Niall and Zayn and flung a fry at them. “Hey tossers! I got news!” 

Zayn and Niall looked up from where they were horsing around and gave him their attention, silly grins adorning their faces. Louis shared a quick look with Liam at this, a loaded glance that said they’d talk about that later.

“What is it?” Niall asked, stuffing still more food in his mouth while Zayn affectionately ruffled his blonde hair. Louis struggled to not raise his eyebrows as he responded.

“We aren’t singing at the reception! But we are singing at the wedding itself, just a song or two so we don’t have to freak out.”

Zayn snorted. “The wedding is tomorrow, I’d say you can safely freak out considering you don’t even have a song picked out. Ms Henney must be out of her mind.”

Harry nodded rationally, his curls bouncing on Louis’ arm, which did funny things to his stomach. “She probably is. But we have a song, we can play ‘Ave Maria,’ which Niall knows how to play and me and Lou know how to sing.”

Niall held up a hand and spoke around the mass of half-chewed food in his mouth. “‘Ave Maria’? I mean it’s a pretty song but it’s not really a pop song, yeah? Doesn’t exactly make you wanna get naked and start the revolution, if you know what I mean.”

The entire table burst into laughter at Niall’s words, and Harry let out an extremely loud laugh which rose above the other boys’. Louis didn’t want to admit it, but he already treasured the sound of Harry’s laugh. Whenever he laughed, it was always genuine- he never faked it to make others feel better. His laugh was all sincerely Harry.

While Louis was laughing, he’d buried his face in Harry’s shoulder as something of a reflex. He didn’t think the other boy minded, and he remained there for a few seconds after he was able to control himself again. He rubbed his forehead back and forth very slightly on Harry’s shoulder before he picked his bead up again, and had to physically stop himself from jumping when he felt Harry give him a friendly double pat on the thigh under the table. It seemed like a genuinely friendly gesture, and Louis was determined to react normally to it.

 

When he was able to fully control himself, Louis grinned at Niall and said, “Nah mate, we’ll be singing at the ceremony, not the reception. Change of plans.”

 

Niall expressed his understanding as Liam offered Harry a kind look. “Thats great, by the way! ‘Ave Maria.’ Must be a load off your shoulders,” he added. “I’d hate to be in a situation where I’d have to sing in front of a bunch of people.”

Zayn shot Liam a look. “Liam, you’re confusing you with me,” he said. “You love to sing in front of people.”

Louis drew in a breath sharply. “Oh yeah! Liam, wanna sing with us tomorrow?” he asked excitedly. Unfortunately, Liam was quick to shoot him down.

“Definitely not. But I’ll go, moral support and all that.”

Niall smiled at Liam and grabbed Zayn’s arm. “If he goes, you should go too.”

Zayn laughed. “I’ll go as long as Louis doesn’t force me to sing.”

Louis smiled sneakily. “No promises, man.”

As Louis said this, he caught sight of the growing expression on Zayn’s face, one of pure underhandedness. Louis did not like that look at all.

“Gonna pick up any girls at the wedding, Lou?” Zayn asked. 

Louis could’ve punched him he was so angry.

He knew that Zayn would try to sabotage him and Harry. He’d been too thick to see Zayn’s greeting to Harry for what it really was, but this was a blatant attempt to make Louis extremely uncomfortable in front of Harry and invoke confusion about their relationship. 

Louis glared at Zayn, not knowing how to answer. He knew the logical answer would be yes. He also knew that he did not want to give this answer. 

Zayn stared straight back, a look of pure competition on his face. 

Luckily, Liam stepped in, coming to Louis’ rescue. “I know I will,” he put in, taking the spotlight off of Louis. As he said this, he shot Zayn a deprecating look, and Zayn at least had enough grace to look faintly ashamed. Not much, though.

Louis was afraid to look at Harry to see his reaction to this. He didn’t want Harry to hear this, didn’t want the confusion and uncomfortable questions.

——

Harry however wasn’t even listening to the conversation, he was lost in his own thoughts.

Unfortunately, his thoughts were taking on a rather depressing route. Harry was very unhappy at the fact that it was Thursday, and that the next day was Friday, the day they would complete their project. Which meant that after tomorrow, Louis wouldn’t be friendly to him anymore- they’d return to being strangers. Niall and Zayn seemed like they’d remain friends, they were already seemingly so close.

Harry felt as though he and Louis had gotten close too, also in such a short time. Harry hadn’t hit it off with someone like this since two years ago when he met Niall, and even this felt different. With Louis, Harry was just happy. There was no other way to put it. He didn’t know why, since they’d only known each other a week, but Louis treated him like an equal.

He was sharp and kind and witty, and he made Harry smile and LAUGH, and he had eyes that made you feel special just by being on the receiving end of their gaze. He was a nice person. And he made Harry happy.

Which was why Harry was dreading tomorrow. He didn’t expect Louis to stick around after he was done with what he needed Harry for. Why would he? Harry was just Harry.

He had nothing to offer Louis. And Louis would realize that. And then he would leave.

Harry sat there in the middle of the cafeteria, among his friends and acquaintances. He was surrounded by people, and yet he still felt worthless and alone.


	10. Chapter 9

“Come on, lads! We’ve got to make a quick getaway!” Louis’ distinctive voice rang loudly throughout the hallway- it was unlikely that they’d get out of the school without being noticed now.

It was Friday and the five boys were leaving school early in order to go to the wedding and get there and ready on time- Louis honestly didn’t even know why they bothered coming to school in the first place but, well. Sometimes people feel like being stupid and one can hardly blame them for that, right?

They walked down the hall towards the door, and Zayn slapped Louis round the head.

“The fuck was that for?” Louis asked indignantly, grabbing his head in pain while the others laughed.

“You just announced that we’re cutting to the entire school practically! Honestly, it’s like you’ve never skipped before. Idiot.” Zayn said, muttering the last part under his breath.

“I have too skipped before!” Louis answered. “Its Liam that hasn’t.”

Niall turned to look at Liam, who flushed. “You really never skipped before? Even Harry’s skipped!” 

Louis chuckled at Harry’s indignant cries of “Whats that supposed to mean?” and reached over to ruffle his hair.

Liam glanced back at Niall and shook his head. “Never. I need to do well and I can’t very well cut and do well at the same time, can I?”

All Niall did was laugh. Liam considered being offended, but honestly the Irish boy’s laughter was so infectious that he didn’t have the heart to do so, instead opting for laughing as well.

The five of them were almost out the door when a teacher evidently heard their voices and stuck his head out the door of his classroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He questioned suspiciously, raising his eyebrows at the five boys who were heading towards the exit.

“Out!” Louis answered as they crossed over the threshold, accompanying his words with a small, energetic wave. “Don’t worry though, we’ll probably be back on Monday!” 

The boys burst into laughter at the teacher’s shocked expression and continued walking out the door, not even pretending to speed up.

“Shouldn’t we speed up? I mean, he might chase after us and report us,” Liam said nervously, glancing behind them as they gained distance from the building.

Zayn smiled at Liam, clapping him on the shoulder. “Nah, man. Why should we? He isn’t gonna leave his class. Besides, who gives a fuck? It’s a Friday night in America!”

Liam raised his brows. “Its a Friday morning in England,” he said. “Are you high? You’d better not be, we’re going to a wedding and that would be rude.”

Louis laughed and threw an arm around Liam’s shoulder. “You know Zayn, always talking out his ass. He’s just jokin around, besides it doesn’t smell like pot. Relax, mate, eh?”

Louis wasn’t the only one that caught Harry’s disappointed expression at Louis’ display of affection for Liam. Louis caught Liam’s eye and raised eyebrows as if to say “What do you think?”

The skipping school situation was forgotten. 

Liam’s nod was meant to say to Louis, “he’s jealous,” which was what he hoped Louis got from it. It was hard to tell, but he suspected that Louis had figured that out for himself.

They all walked out to the parking lot, and walked Liam, Niall and Zayn to their respective cars. They were all going home to change into their suits and dress clothes for the wedding, and then they would all meet up at the wedding.

Niall was taking Harry back to his house- they’d left Harry’s clothes there so Harry didn’t have to run the risk of seeing Robin at home. Zayn was also going to pick Louis up and give him a ride to the wedding after they got ready.

Louis said goodbye to them as they all drove off, and Zayn gave him a ride to the bus station so he could take the bus home.

“So I’ll see you in a little while?” Louis asked Zayn as he got out of the car. 

Zayn nodded. “Make sure you change fast, yeah? Henney’ll shit bricks if you’re late for the wedding. You should be early, even.”

Louis chuckled as he started walking towards the bus that was already pulling up at the station. “Got it, but it’s up to you to get me there on time. Thanks for the ride, mate.”

Louis got on the bus and watched as Zayn drove away, ready to get the project over with. If he was honest, he was looking forward to how Harry would look in dress clothes, possibly a suit.

Louis was having trouble with his growing attraction to Harry. As he had previously thought about it, he’d thought guys were attractive before, and it had never bothered him because he’d never had the urge to act upon his infatuations with guys before. However, the crush that he had on Harry was rapidly growing, and this made him nervous. 

The bet made everything complicated, as well. Harry couldn’t find out about it, because he’d be hurt and feel used otherwise. 

But there was another thing. Louis didn’t know if he even wanted to do the bet anymore, because he’d be leading Harry on and by the off chance that Harry actually fell for him, although Louis could feel that he would only continue to like Harry more and more, he didn’t know if he wanted to be in a relationship with him.

Louis had no problem with gay people. In fact, he was friends with several and who they were into had never been an issue. However, it was different when it was Louis himself that had gay tendencies. He knew there was nothing wrong with being gay, but he still was hesitant with letting himself be labeled as such.

And he knew that, If he kept trying to make Harry fall for him, which is what seemed to actually be happening, then he would continue to fall for Harry also.

And then, when the time came, he would be faced with both Harry’s feelings for him, his own feelings for Harry, and his thoughts on being an out, gay couple with Harry. He didn’t know what he’d do if it ever came to that.

Louis rested his head on the glass window of the bus and gently shut his eyes, releasing a sigh that started in his toes. All of a sudden, this week felt like it had been just too bloody long and all he wanted to do was sleep.

However, he knew that this was impossible. He would be able to sleep when he got home. It wasn’t normally Louis’ style to go right home on Friday nights, he much preferred getting smashed and hooking up with someone only to pass out later, but he wasn’t in the mood today. 

He got out at his stop and walked home the short distance to his house, remembering when he had walked the same route with Harry on Wednesday. He wished Harry was here with him now, and mentally groaned. 

Louis cursed his tendency to get attached to people so quickly. He cursed Liam for knowing about this tendency as well. It would be so much easier to ignore if he didn’t have to deal with Liam noticing it as well and shooting him loaded looks every five seconds.

He arrived at home and let himself in, the house strangely empty. Without the little patter of small feet and twinkle of laughter weaving through the air to light up the house, it had a deadened chill to it. This was why Louis rarely was home alone- it didn’t feel like home without his family.

Shaking off this uncomfortable feeling, he climbed the stairs to his room and was met with memories with yesterday as he took in the clutter that littered the floor and bed.

Yesterday after school, the five of them, to the delight of Louis’ sisters, had gone to Louis’ house again, to work on the song they were to sing today. Zayn and Liam had played with Louis’ sisters since they weren’t actually in the performance, and Louis, Harry and Niall had worked on the song.

Louis was satisfied with his own voice- it didn’t sound bad and blended well with Harry’s- they complemented each other’s voices perfectly. 

Niall had played the guitar perfectly, his nimble fingers creating complex picking patterns that resulted in a gorgeous tune that harmonized their voices. Niall’s playing gave the song a wonderful background that really completed the whole song. The boys had been very impressed, Zayn even going to far as to ask the other boy to teach him how to play.

Zayn had asked in such an outrageous manner (“mate, I’d love you forever if you taught me how to play like that,”) that Niall had laughed and agreed to teach Zayn soon.

Louis had felt a twinge of jealousy, but was mainly glad that Zayn had taken so well to Niall. Besides, he’d hung out with Harry the whole time. Speaking of Harry, Louis actually let out an audible sigh as he remembered how great Harry’s voice had sounded when he sang.

When Harry sang, Louis had literally gotten chills. This was something that was completely foreign to him- he’d never been so affected by someone’s voice before so he didn’t quite know what to make of it. Harry’s voice, normally slow, lax and loose, had turned into a plethora of emotion that released itself in the melancholy tune of ‘Ave Maria’.

Louis had honestly never liked anything as much as he’d liked Harry’s voice in that moment. Seriously, he was fucked.

Stepping around the clutter, Louis made his way over to his dresser to get his fancy clothes on. He changed out of his jeans and striped shirt and considered his choices. He decided on a white collared shirt, black suspenders, and classy black dress pants that his dad had given him before he moved out.

Louis stared at the pants, his mind bombarded with memories of his family when it had been happy and together. Of course they were still happy and Louis had given up on being mad at his father for abandoning them, but sometimes he thought about the times they’d had.

Shoving these thoughts to the corner of his mind (it was getting fucking crowded back there), he pulled his clothes on and went into the bathroom to style his hair.

When it was adequately styled, he looked into the mirror, shot himself with finger guns, and said to his reflection, “Dayum gurl, you lookin fine,” and then cleared his throat in a very manly way and tried not think about what he just did.

Walking out of the bathroom, he typed out a message to Zayn.

To: Zayn

Hurry the fuck up, can’t be late now! -Lou

After a few minutes of wandering aimlessly around his house, he received a text from his friend.

To: Louis 

Calm your tits, I’m on my way. -Zayn

Fifteen minutes later, Zayn pulled up to the curb in front of his house and Louis joined him in the car, glad to be out of his eerily lifeless house.

“You ready for this?” Zayn asked Louis as he drove them to the church. Louis took a deep breath and nodded. 

“I reckon so. Too late to back out as it is, so.”

Zayn nodded and reached over to clap Louis in the shoulder. “You’ll be fine man. Eye on the prize. Game face, bro.”

Louis rolled his eyes at his friend’s cheesy words, but secretly appreciated them. Sure, it had been a weird week, but he was glad that he and Zayn were still normal.

Thankfully it wasn’t too long before they arrived at the church, and when they got there Louis was pleased to note that the other three boys were already there, and Niall had brought his guitar.

They all walked into some sort of back room and sat down on the boxes sitting on the floor. It seemed like they were in some sort of storage room, if the cluttered shelves were anything to go by. 

Before Louis could enter the room after the other boys however, Ms Henney came running up to him, in her dress and makeup and hair. She looked beautiful, but very very stressed. 

“Is everything okay, Louis? You know the song, right? You’re supposed to sing during communion okay?” she said in a rush.

Louis started. “Yeah everything’s fine but what’s communion?”

“It’s the thing where the people eat the round things. I gotta go, don’t let me down Louis!” she sprinted off in a hurry, dress trailing after her. 

“Good luck!” Louis yelled after her, not sure if that was the right thing to say when one was getting married. What was the acceptable saying? ‘Break a leg’? ‘God help you’? 

Louis shrugged and walked into the room, just in time to see Niall take out a small bottle of Jameson from his jacket and take a generous swig.

“Irish whiskey!” Zayn said, laughing. “Should’ve known.”

Louis was torn between laughing and telling Niall to put down the drink, but Liam took the decision out of his hands. 

“Mate, you’re really drinking before the ceremony? Before you PLAY at the ceremony?!”

Niall shot Liam a lazy smile as he took another drink. “Don’t worry about me mate, I been drinkin this stuff since I was three yeh? Me mum used to put it in the bottle.”

“Why do I not believe that?” Liam said under his breath, and was ignored by everyone.

Louis made his way over to Harry and took a seat next to him, dropping his arm round the other boy and pulling him close, forgetting all of his speculations from before on the bus.

Damn, Harry cleaned up well, by the way. He was in a dark blue blazer, a white shirt, a black bow tie, and black pants. He looked great. 

“Well don’t you look ravishing,” Louis said, and his insides burned with pride at the sound of Harry’s laughter.

“Thanks. I don’t know how I’m feeling about this though.”

Louis was surprised at the understated note of panic in his friend’s voice. Harry turned to face him and allowed Louis to see the fear collecting in his nervous green eyes.

Louis’ hand, without his permission, somehow found its way from Harry’s shoulder into his soft, curly hair and he had to physically stop himself from massaging Harry’s scalp. Honestly, there was a time and a place for such things and this was neither.

“Whats wrong, Hazza?” Louis asked, the nickname also falling effortlessly from his lips by complete accident. Seriously, why wasn’t his brain functioning correctly right now? It was actually pissing him off, but Harry was right there so it was easy to forget about all the other stuff.

 

“Hazza?” Harry asked with a sudden smile bleeding into his tone, questioning the nickname much like Louis had done with him.

“You love it,” Louis said, smiling back. “Now what is it, Haz? Tell me what’s wrong.”

Louis knew he was somewhat babying Harry, but this was Harry and he had curly hair and dimples and green eyes bigger than quarters it seemed and Louis just couldn’t help it, okay?

Harry swallowed hard and looked away from Louis’ eyes that were so close to his own. “I can’t do this,” he said, clutching at his knees.

“Hey,” Louis said quietly. “You can, okay? Your voice is amazing and you’re gonna kill it, right Harry?”

All of a sudden, Niall’s voice cut through the air to Harry and Louis. “Oi, you two, stop flirting over there yeah? We need to talk!”

Louis’ head shot up and he shared a wide-eyed look with Zayn. Or tried to, rather, because Zayn was too busy looking at Niall. So Louis settled for sharing the look with Liam, which he really didn’t wanna do because really Liam was already too good at reading Louis.

Louis was about to reply snarkily to Niall, but was interrupted by Harry throwing himself rather violently to bury his head in his knees and groaning.

“I can’t do this!” he wailed, not paying attention to Liam’s attempts to shush him.

Niall came over to Harry and Louis and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“You know I love you Harry, but now is not the time to have a shit fit.”

Harry made a strange gurgling noise, and let out a surprised squeak as Niall forcefully pulled him up into a proper sitting position.

He shot Niall a look, but all Niall did was hand his small bottle to Harry and give him a small smile.

“Drink some. You’ll relax.”

What transpired next was a curious string of events- Harry glanced at the bottle, and then at Niall. Niall raised his eyebrows and Harry bit his lip and tilted his head to the side and widened his eyes, as though trying to silently tell Niall to remember something. Niall shrugged and waved his hand to the side as though making whatever Harry was trying to tell him insignificant and once again tried to get Harry to take a drink.

Harry shot Niall a skeptical look, turned around, made very brief eye contact with Louis, and drank some of the whiskey. He coughed as it went down and lifted a hand to wipe his eyes, which had started to stream.

“I knew you could do it, lad!” Niall’s delighted voice rang throughout the room, and suddenly Louis also felt like it was a good time for a drink.

Or course it was NOT, but that didn’t stop Louis from having some whiskey as well. He swallowed some, barely managing not to cough, loving the burn as it trailed down his throat and continued to smolder in his stomach.

Liam evidently decided this was enough because he came over and took the whiskey from them. “Guys it is not a good idea to get drunk before playing at your teacher’s wedding, honestly. Get drunk afterwards, not now.”

They nodded sullenly, reluctantly accepting Liam’s words. Suddenly, the door flew open and a very large man appeared in the doorway.

“Are you the ones singing during communion?” he asked quickly. They nodded in response.

“Well stop dicking around, you lot! You’re on soon, go get set up! People are already arriving!” His face was practically purple and his mustache was flying every which way while he spoke. He strongly reminded Louis of Uncle Vernon.

The man suddenly noticed the bottle in Liam’s hand. “And you! Drinking in church! Disgrace.”

He left the room and shut the door in a huff. The rest of them cracked up at Liam, who looked as though he was about to protest, but ended up deflating somewhat and took a sip himself.

“You all suck,” he said good-naturedly, setting down the whiskey. Still laughing, the rest of them left the storage room and made their way into the main room of the church, where people had already started to gather. 

Liam and Zayn found seats near the back, and hoped they weren’t taking anyone’s seats. Zayn amused himself by winking at old ladies flirtatiously (one actually half-fainted), and Liam amused himself by playing a furious game of Angry Birds on his phone. He made sure to turn the sound off though, because he was just that nice of a person. What a considerate lad.

Meanwhile, Niall, Harry and Louis had absolutely no idea where to set up. They knew it couldn’t be in the center of the church, or on the aisle… They settled for the side of the front and hoped it was right.

The wedding started not soon after, and it was a very nice (nice as in, long and boring as hell) ceremony. Before he knew it, it was time for Louis to sing with Harry and Niall playing backup.

As the first chords of the guitar rang through the air, Louis took a deep breath, shared a look with Harry, and they began to sing.

Harry’s voice was the rock and Louis’ weaved the harmonies. They sounded beautiful, their voices naturally blending. Louis couldn’t believe how great the three of them sounded, and before he knew it, it was over.

——

“We smashed it, lads!” Niall’s thick Irish accent cut through the elated air of the wedding reception, which Ms Henney (now Mrs Glenn) had allowed them to come to.

Louis let out a laugh of pure joy as he pulled both Harry and Niall into a group hug. Not normally something he would do, but they’d just done an actual performance and he was high on adrenaline. 

“We really did! We did it!” Louis heard himself saying, and it barely registered in his head that he was jumping up and down in excitement. How embarrassing.

Niall laughed and broke away from the hug and ran off presumably to find Zayn, who was no doubt already getting drunk off his fucking ass and hitting on any and every girl there. Liam was off getting food, which left Harry and Louis alone.

Louis continued to hug Harry, it was just something he felt like he needed to do, like, he would die or float away if he didn’t. He smiled into Harry’s shoulder, feeling the other boy’s arms tighten around his own waist.

“See, Haz? I knew you could do it,” Louis whispered into Harry’s hair, drowning in the scent of his curly locks. Harry chuckled, the sound vibrating against Louis’s neck, sending chills scattering all over his body. 

“With a little liquid courage,” he said.

Louis pulled back and grinned before he did anything stupid.

“Speaking of liquid courage, let’s get drinks!” Louis led them over to the bar.

Harry was having slight hesitations towards drinking even more- he’d been skeptical before when Niall wanted him to drink to relax. He’d been apprehensive because if he was honest, he’d never been drunk (unusual for a boy his age), but with Robin drunk all the time, he’d never had the urge.

He’d had a little before because it had seemed harmless if he was going to only take a sip, but he got the feeling that Louis was going to drink a lot more than they had before.

As Louis smiled and handed him a Corona, Harry looked into the other boy’s sky blue eyes and took a deep breath. He already knew he’d do many things to impress the boy in suspenders in front of him, and drinking a Corona was one of them, Robin be damned.

——

It was barely 10 o’clock and Harry was already drunk out of his mind. He had the presence of mind to know this, but honestly was so far gone that he could barely see straight. His vision was blurring, everything seemed fucking hilarious, and his mind was constantly flitting around from topic to topic, giving stupid ideas. Really, at one point during the night he’d thought he was Pocahontas.

He trusted Louis though. Louis was nice and had pretty eyes and he would take care of him because he had suspenders on and that’s what people in suspenders were supposed to do, right?

He was currently laying down on the curb back behind the church, with his head laying in Louis’ lap. It was a very comfortable lap also, he’ll have you know. He tried to focus enough to look into Louis’ eyes and had the feeling that he was a lot more drunk than Louis.

He tried to speak several times, but his tongue was being stupid and wouldn’t help him form words. It felt heavy and slow. Harry slowly contemplated the possibility of his tongue spontaneously becoming a sock.

He finally was able to focus on Louis’ eyes and he miraculously got his sock-tongue to work.

“Lou, you have eyes,” Harry managed to say, and was quite proud of himself.

“Yeah, I do,” Louis replied, sounding faintly amused. A smile appeared on his face, and Harry smiled back as widely as he could in response because if Louis smiled then that meant Harry was meant to be smiling too.

“Yeah. Eyes. They’re. Like? Pretty.” Here Harry broke off to burst into laughter for no other reason other than suddenly the situation seemed inexplicably hilarious. He somehow saw how dramatically Louis’s face had changed at his words.

“No man, where’s your smile gone?” he asked, his words very slow and slurred. He lazily lifted a hand and brought it to Louis’ pretty face, trying to rearrange the features back into the lovely grin he’d come to like so much.

“No, now you smile.” He pouted at Louis, who complied after a moment.

Harry sighed in contentment as Louis’ hand found it’s way into his hair and rubbed comfortingly over his scalp, creating deliciously calming waves all over his scalp. He cast gratuitous eyes at Louis, and closed them as right now seemed like a great time to fall asleep. 

And Harry fell asleep with his head in Louis’ lap, drunk and comfortable and happy.


	11. Chapter 10

When Louis woke up the next morning, the first thing that he was aware of was the rare bliss of waking up early on a Saturday morning, hangover-free.

He turned over in his sheets yawning widely and stretching out his sleep-riddled limbs as he allowed the events of the previous day to cloud his consciousness. He smiled as he remembered their performance- they’d sounded gorgeous and he was sure they’d get full marks on the project. It was impossible to think they wouldn’t.

Louis relaxed in his bed as he let himself think about late last night. When Harry was laying with his head in his lap, drunk and sleepy, his words slow and slurred, looking utterly delicious. He had been pliant and warm and filled with drunken truthfulness.

As he allowed the events to wash over him, Louis couldn’t help but relive the moment that Harry had called his eyes pretty over and over in his head. He couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t just the alcohol talking, but Louis thought he had enough experience with being drunk to know when someone was pissed beyond coherence and when the drinks were making them speak the truth.

His stomach squirmed when he remembered how Harry’s warm, clumsy fingers had collided with his face, and tried to rearrange his lips into a smile once again. He’d frozen in shock at Harry’s statement about his eyes, the smile falling off his face.

It had taken everything he had in him to not place fond kisses on Harry’s fingertips as he attempted to mold Louis’ mouth into a more satisfying position, something Louis recalled with a flushed face.

He groaned, flipping over onto his stomach and burying his face underneath his pillow, wishing his life wasn’t so complicated and cursing Harry for being so goddamn cute.

Honestly, he’d smiled so widely his dimples nearly cracked his face in half. 

Not to mention he was lying in Louis’ lap. As in, his head was in Louis’ lap. 

Where was his attraction to girls just when he needed it most? Why did he want Harry more than he’d ever wanted any girl, ever?

He sighed in defeat, and chose to just put it out of his mind for the time being. He did this so often that he kind of wondered when he’d get around to thinking about it all, but that was too much to sort out so Louis put it out of his mind altogether.

Deciding that staying in bed would only invite the memories of last night to keep replaying in his head until it drove him insane, Louis decided to get out of bed and get up for the day. Ignoring the fact that it was only 9am, he got out of bed and dressed casually, in his classic outfit of red skinny jeans, a white and blue striped t-shirt, and a grey soft-looking beanie.

He knew that Harry would have a truly spectacular hangover this morning, and decided to pick him up to get breakfast. He knew how to cure a hangover and judging by the fact that Harry didn’t seem to, Louis felt like it was his responsibility to help the boy out.

He decided to ignore the fact that it was still early in the morning and he’d be waking Harry up, which would only make his hangover worse, but he didn’t particularly care because he felt like going to see Harry. And maybe Harry’s hangover should just shut up.

He got some money, a key to his house, and his phone, and snuck out of the house, careful not to wake up any of his family.

Once he’d closed and locked the door behind him, he started the walk to the bus stop. He briefly considered getting his own car, but then remembered how much money that cost and remembered that he acually didn’t mind riding the bus.

He payed the fare and took a seat, readying himself for the ride to Harry’s house. He’d brought him home last night, and Harry had been rather strange about the ordeal, at first refusing to tell Louis where he lived, and them adamantly protesting any attempts Louis made to bring him home. 

This surprised Louis, because Harry had seemed like a relaxed, happy drunk at first and then he’d turned cranky and upset at mention of home. He’d mentioned having a dick of a stepfather before, but Louis couldn’t imagine it being that bad.

When Louis arrived at the stop near Harry’s house, he got off the bus and began walking to Harry’s house. The houses looked relatively similar to each other, and Louis hoped he would ring the right doorbell.

When he reached what he thought was Harry’s house, Louis made his way up the walkway to the front door. Once he got there, he discovered the doorbell was broken, so he was left with knocking. 

After a few minutes of knocking and no one answering, Louis was seriously wondering if he had the right house. It seemed like the right one, and he really didn’t want to leave without Harry and give up.

He sat down on the front step and plunked his chin glumly into his hand, wondering what his next logical course of action should be. 

It came to him in the form of the gods and Ed Sheeran.

Louis stood up on Harry’s stoop, faced the door, took a deep breath in, and mentally prepared himself for the shit he was about to pull next.

He needed to get Harry out of the house. Knocking was doing no good. Clearly Harry didn’t respond to the normally socially accepted ways of trying to get someone to open their front door. So Louis had to get a bit creative.

And since his current favorite song was “Domino” by Jessie J, it seemed only fitting.

“I’m feelin sexy and freeee,” Louis sang positively at the top of his lungs, “Like glitter’s rainin on meee!” 

Louis didn’t bother trying to sing well. All that mattered was that he sing loud enough to get Harry to open his fucking door, headache be damned.

Louis continued. “I can taste the tension like a cloud of smoke in the air,” While he sang, he took a moment to reflect on his actual song choice and perhaps thought that maybe him liking Harry wasn’t so surprising, when one considered the music he listened to.

“Rock my World into the sunlight, make this dream the best I’ve ever known!”

Louis made sure to sing the next part the loudest yet. If this didn’t wake up Harry…

“DIIIIRTY DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT, TAKE ME DOWN LIKE IM A DOMINO!!!!”

He took a deep breath, admiring his own courage although it was coming to nothing. He stared at the stubborn front door, and it stared right back at him, unmoving and unimpressed by his performance.

He realized he didn’t know the rest of the words, and quickly changed his song choice.

“I CAN SHOW YOU THE WORLDDDD, SHINING SHIMMERING SPLENDOR-“

He was forcibly cut off from his fantastic rendition of ‘A Whole New World” at the violent opening of the door.

Louis prepared his face in a bright smile, ready to whisk Harry off into the day, and was sorely surprised when he found himself facing a middle aged, severely hungover man in nothing but boxers, who looked like he had no qualms about wringing Louis’ sorry neck.

“WHAT IN THE FUCKING NAME OF GOD DO YOU THINK YOURE DOING, BOY?”

Louis never thought he’d see the day when his brain failed to supply him with an appropriately sassy reply, but he was left with nothing today, and in some ways that’s what scared him the most.

“Um, I thought this was Harry’s house-“

The man’s face got steadily redder as he yelled up the stairs, clutching his own head in pain as he did so. 

“BOY! WHO THE FUCK IS SINGING SHOW TUNES AT THE CRACK OF BLOODY DAWN-“

The man didn’t get an answer however, as Harry appeared at the top of the stairs. The disheveled boy took one look at the scene below him, jaw open, and sprinted down the stairs, shooting the man an unreadable look and dragging Louis away.

It happened so fast- one minute he was witnessing some crazy guy scream at him and now Harry was actually leading him down the walkway instead of him having to coax Harry out of the house.

Louis chanced a glance back at the house and saw that the man was still yelling at them and clutching at his head, and then he seemed to lose some of his steam and he slowly stopped yelling, and clutched his head even harder, his eyes closing tightly.

Louis looked at the man and then at Harry, and back again. 

“I’m guessing that’s your asshole of a step-dad?” Louis asked, forgetting to be sensitive.

By this time they’d reached the sidewalk. Louis automatically turned to walk towards the bus station, but evidently Harry had other ideas.

Ignoring Louis’ crass statement about his step-father, Harry lead them down the street and away from the bus station, still not speaking. He was also holding his head, and Louis suspected he was sporting quite the hangover. At least he wasn’t puking.

Although it was unlike him to do so, Louis somehow understood the silence and allowed Harry to speak when he wanted to. He regretted his words that he’d blurted out unthinkingly, and waited for Harry to speak.

After a few minutes of walking, Harry stopped walking and turned to him. “What are you doing?”

Whatever Louis was expecting, this hadn’t been it. “What?”

“Why are you here? Why’d you come to my house?” Louis didn’t like these questions. “Actually, how’d you even know where my house was?”

Harry was looking at him through accusing green eyes, his expression guarded, and Louis felt trapped, nervous. What had he done wrong?

“Why am I here? I wanted to hang out with you, for one. And I knew where your house was cuz you told me last night… Was I not supposed to know, or…?”

Harry sighed, still holding his head. He turned away from Louis and started walking again.

“Hazza, what’s the problem?” Louis asked, noting the way Harry’s eys closed briefly at the sound of the nickname. He put a hand on Harry’s arm and squeezed gently, silently urging him to give Louis some insight into why he didn’t seem like himself.

“Louis, why are you here?” Harry repeated. Although he’d just asked the question, for some reason this question struck Louis as infinitely more important this time- it had a note of finality in it, it seemed.

“I’m here because I want to spend time with you,” Louis said, slowly, truthfully. If Harry was uncertain about something, Louis hoped this would clear it up.

This didn’t seemed to be the case. “But the project’s over, we finished it.” Harry had switched from clutching at his head to rubbing his eyes sleepily with a tight fist. 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Now Louis was flat out confused. What the hell was Harry getting at?

“Because you don’t have to hang out with me anymore! There’s nothing left to do!” Harry finally exploded, screwing his eyes shut as the sound of his own raised voice pounded through his skull.

He barely even noticed that they’d stopped walking. He however did notice when Louis took his hand.

“Haz, you really thought that I’d stop speaking to you after the project was over?” he said, slowly intertwining their fingers and rubbing his thumb in small circles over Harry’s hand.

Harry stared at their hands for a few seconds, not saying anything at all. 

After a few moments, he cleared his throat. “Well, yeah,” he said, his voice coming out scratchy. His hand suddenly tightened on Louis’. “Thats what’s supposed to happen, isn’t it?” he asked, finally looking up and meeting Louis’ gaze full on.

Louis couldn’t think of anything to say that would convince Harry, so he opted for actions instead. Slowly, he stepped closer to the other boy until they were barely inches apart, and swung their hands a bit, playfully.

He brought up his free hand and snuck it behind Harry’s back, and pressed him close, holding him in a hug. Harry was frozen at first, but then relaxed into the hug, and allowed his forehead to rest on top of Louis’ shoulder, in spite of the fact that he was taller.

Louis felt the boy’s forehead and smiled, turning his head to face Harry’s and breathed in the scent of his hair. He couldn’t tell how long they stood there for, hands clasped together like that, hugging, but he was grateful that it was so early that no one was out.

When at last Harry pulled away, he looked at Louis through lidded eyes, a question written in their brightness. Louis, thinking that he’d just answer it through actions, merely smiled a small, close-lipped smile and took a step back, allowing their intertwined hands to fall between them.

Harry gazed down at their hands again as Louis looked down at Harry himself. 

Harry was wearing a rumpled plain white t-shirt with the short sleeves rolled up slightly, and dark green plaid pajama pants.

Harry tore his gaze away from their hands at the sound of Louis’ laughter. He looked up and smiled at him.

“What’s so funny?”

Louis grinned at him. “You aren’t wearing shoes, Haz.”

Sure enough, when Harry looked down, he was barefoot. He hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t thought to put on shoes or change into normal clothes before he sprinted out the door, to pull Louis as far away from Robin that he could.

Harry joined in with Louis’ giggling, he did look rather ridiculous.

Louis wasn’t laughing at Harry’s ridiculousness though- he was laughing at the fact that Harry looked so adorable that Louis would probably never want anyone else again. So basically he was laughing in a haha-I’m-so-screwed-haha kind of way.

He smiled up into Harry’s face and was pleased to see the clouds gone from Harry’s eyes as he gazed back at him. “Lets get you some shoes and breakfast, yeah?”

Harry nodded, still smiling, and Louis forgot to look away when Harry’s dimples made their appearance. This was bad, he thought. Before he knew it, he was gonna be composing poems about Harry’s dimples. That simply wouldn’t do. He ripped his eyes away as they started down the street again, telling himself kindly to snap the fuck out of it.

Neither mentioned it, but their fingers may or may not have stayed intertwined between their bodies, and they walked very closely together so as to hide it from the world. It was their secret- they didn’t talk about it even to each other. 

——

When they had bought Harry some shoes and had found a diner, they both ordered large, greasy breakfasts- Louis simply because he was hungry and Harry because he desperately needed to cure his hangover.

“So,” Louis began somewhat cautiously. “Who was that guy who answered the door this morning?”

The peaceful, happy expression vanished from Harry’s face as he slowed down his chewing and placed down his bacon-and-egg sandwich. Swallowing, he avoided Louis’ eyes as he replied, “Um. That was my step-dad. Robin.”

Louis nodded. “.. is he always like that?” 

At this, Harry’s eyes shot back to Louis’, as if knowing that Louis wasn’t asking about Robin’s unfriendliness, but rather asking if he was always aggressive, and as his obvious hangover had suggested, very drunk. Which was never a good combination.

Harry stared at Louis for a long time, as if trying to decide if he should be honest with him or not. Louis didn’t dare speak- he knew this was an important topic that he should treat with caution.

Slowly, Harry nodded. The action spoke multitudes.

“Does he ever.. Get violent?” Louis asked with trepidation. His heart clenched as Harry didn’t deny it right away. 

“Has he ever hurt you?” Louis’ voice grew sharp and tight as he imagined that prick ever laying a single fucking hand on his precious Harry- if he had, he would pay.

However, Louis was slightly comforted by the way Harry denied that Robin had ever hurt him, but it was painfully obvious that the man was not safe to live around.

Not even because he was clearly a drunk. What small glance Louis had taken into the house while picking up Harry had shown him how Harry lived- there was clutter everywhere, and not the normal kind that came with being scatter-brained.

No, this was the kind of clutter that was much deeper than that- it was the kind of uncleanliness that came with long periods of serious neglect. 

Louis was all of a sudden seized with protectiveness for Harry. He looked across the table at the boy in pajamas, who’d taken Louis’ current silence as a cue to keep eating. All Louis knew was that he did not want Harry going back to that house, if he could help it.

“Come back to my house today,” he found himself saying, much to the surprise of both Harry and himself.

Harry stopped eating once more. “Again?” he asked doubtfully. “Aren’t your family getting sick of me by now?” 

Louis smiled and patted Harry’s hand. “Course not Haz, they love you! Honest,” He added at Harry’s skeptical look. “Plus, I wanna hang out with you, when we don’t have to work on a project, yeah?”

Louis would have to ask Harry to hang out like friends more often, because the slow, wide smile that beamed across Harry’s face was quickly becoming his favorite sight in the entire world. As much as it scared him, looking at Harry’s face right then and there, he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.

“Yeah, sure,” Harry replied after a moment, and they finished the meal in comfortable silence.

—— 

It was five in the afternoon and Harry and Louis were sprawled across Louis’ bed, watching chick flicks on Louis’ laptop. Harry’s head was resting on Louis’ shoulder, and Louis was absently playing with Harry’s hand and fingers with his own.

They were comfortably watching TV while leaning on each other, and it wasn’t awkward. They seemed almost to have skipped over the friend stage and passed into something that wasn’t quite a relationship, but it wouldn’t seem right to call them friends. However, nothing was official so friends was what they remained right now.

As the movie ended, Harry reluctantly rose from his comfortable spot on Louis’ shoulder and shot him a sleepy grin. Louis did not appreciate the way his breath caught in his throat at the sight.

“It’s late, I should get going,” Harry said, his voice thick with comfortability. Louis looked at him and couldn’t resist running a hand through Harry’s curls. Well, the curls that he could reach. At one point, Harry had stolen Louis’ soft grey beanie and was wearing it, and looked so cute in it that it actually hurt Louis’ chest when he looked at Harry.

He didn’t miss the way Harry smiled slightly at the gesture, either.

“Why, though? It’s not late, it’s five!” Louis pouted, not quite ready to let Harry leave yet.

Harry leaned into Louis’ touch. “But I’ve been out all day, Lou,” he said quietly. “I’ll be missed.”

“Will you?” Louis questioned gently, not to be rude but just to genuinely find out. Harry’s face tightened momentarily as he realized once again that Louis knew, but relaxed once he remembered that Louis wasn’t judging him for it.

“I guess I can stay longer,” he said, shooting Louis a grateful expression, thanking him with his eyes. Louis smiled and offered Harry his shoulder again.

Harry complied, and unbeknownst to Louis, was ecstatically happy. Not only did Louis still want to be his friend even after the project was over, but he actually wanted to spend time with him! He DIDNT want Harry to leave! And he cares about Robin not being good for Harry, and it seemed that he cared about Harry himself, too.

Harry’s happiness came with a bitter price though- he dreaded the day when Louis would realize that Harry wasn’t fun, or witty or interesting- he couldn’t give Louis anything and what Louis was giving him right now, happiness, wasn’t something he knew he could reciprocate. 

Harry, becoming unhappy with the way his thoughts were going, forced them from his mind for now and allowed himself to enjoy the moment, laying here with Louis in his bedroom, watching simple movies and just being really relaxed and comfortable. Harry hadn’t been this happy in a long, long time.

And they remained that way, watching movies, and simply enjoying each other’s company for a long time after.


	12. Chapter 11

Harry and Louis’ friendship continued to grow and blossom over the next week- they spent almost every day after school together and when they weren’t together, they made sure to keep in touch by texting.

Something curious was changing though. Louis’ motives were beginning to be less and less about the bet, and more and more about Harry himself. Louis was conflicted though.

This was hardcore conflict. Louis didn’t like it. At all. It required him to delve into his feelings, an activity that he hated like no other.

The thing was, Louis was sorry that he’d started the bet with Zayn. He was glad that he did, because without it he’d never have had the chance to meet Harry. But at the same time, the bet was currently the unappreciated source of a lot of angst for Louis right now.

See, Louis wanted Harry. Without digging too deep into his feelings on this one, he just knew that he had to try to get the other boy.

But this presented a problem. Since they had established the bet, everything Louis did to try to ingratiate himself with Harry felt like cheating. The more he got to know Harry, the more he began to realize just how good of a person the other lad was.

The fact was, it felt like Louis was using Harry for the bet. Which was true, but it made Louis feel that what he was doing with Harry was fake. And he hated it.

It made Louis feel absolutely disgusting. It made him feel incredibly low. He wondered how he could possibly be doing this to Harry.

Louis was all in all pretty much screwed for the bet, because he wanted Harry, but he didn’t want to try to get Harry to like him because of what Louis was doing in relation to the bet.

Louis had half a mind to tell Zayn to call the whole thing off. His half a mind grew into a whole one several days later.

Louis had been hanging out with Harry a lot lately, which was only fitting because it was Harry. However, this meant that he wasn’t exactly going to parties or getting smashed and hooking up with randoms. He was spending the time that he could with Harry.

It came as a shock to Louis (though it shouldn’t have) that some girls actually noticed, one in particular.

Her name was Eleanor Calder, and it was a well known fact that she’d wanted to jump Louis’ bones for quite some time now. She was very pretty and a hardcore party girl, which was the type Louis generally went for. And he had been planning on hooking up with her, but he just hadn’t gotten around to it before the bet was made.

So Eleanor was promptly forgotten by Louis. However, Eleanor had not forgotten about Louis.

The entire thing came as a nasty shock, really.

Louis was in the library when it happened. Now this was an oddity in itself- Louis could barely ever be found in the school library. It just wasn’t his thing. However, he wanted his time alone in school so that he could read cheesy gossip magazines (god, he was such a girl).

He was in the back corner of the library, and as far as he knew, no one knew he was here. In spite of this, he made sure he hid the magazine behind a big book so on the off chance that someone did come across him back here, he might still be covered.

If he was found at all, he hadn’t expected it be by Eleanor.

“Louis?” A feminine voice asked quietly, causing Louis to jump violently and slam the magazine shut in panic.

“Eleanor? What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked frantically, completely ruining his plan of trying to seem nonchalant.

If Eleanor noticed his oddly rude way of greeting her, she didn’t comment on it. “I go to school here, silly,” she said playfully, coming around the bookcase and slowly making her way towards Louis.

Shit. He was trapped. Although, when he thought about it, this wasn’t a bad thing, was it? Eleanor was right fit, and maybe this was all Louis needed to feel like a normal, straight guy again.

He returned Eleanor’s predatory grin as she continued to advance towards him.

Seeing as there was no other place to sit, Eleanor sat down on the floor next to Louis.

“Where have you been lately?” she asked without preamble, a small smile gracing her lips. Louis found that it was easy to ignore it.

“I’ve been around love, you’re the one that’s supposed to find me,” Louis responded. Oh dear. He wasn’t making sense.

Thankfully, Eleanor didn’t seem to notice. “Well I’ve missed you at parties!” she said, pouting softly. “We never got a chance to.. Hang out,” she finished after a second, looking up at Louis through lowered lashes as she placed a hand on his leg.

Louis stared at the small hand on his thigh and swallowed. This wasn’t going as he’d planned. Well, it was, except Louis’ feelings were not responding correctly, because he wasn’t feeling turned on. In the least.

Eleanor didn’t seem too upset at his lack of reply. Instead, she merely grinned sneakily and licked her lips as she slid her hand up his thigh to his zipper. 

Louis jumped up off the ground and forced the bile that was rising rapidly back down into his throat. This was NOT going the right way. 

Louis was supposed to accept the handjob from Eleanor. It’s not like he’d never had them before. In fact, he’d gone much further and never thought anything of it. But this didn’t feel right. He didn’t like it.

“Um, I’ve uh, got somewhere I um, have to be,” Louis stuttered as he started walking away quickly, just to be anywhere but here.

Ignoring her confused cries of “Louis?!”, he ran off in desperation. If this event meant anything, it meant that he needed to speak to Liam, right now.

He ran through the halls, but it was just his luck that the bell would ring at that moment. Students poured into the hall, oblivious to Louis’ degenerating mental health.

He searched through the anonymous sea of faces for Liam’s familiar one, and instead found Harry’s, which really didn’t help anyone. Harry dimpled at him, and Louis’ heart shot up at the sight. Louis offered him a grimace in return and hurried off, not stopping to talk. Now was not the time.

Louis ran down the hall, nearly tripping over people many times, and finally found his friend as he was about to enter his class.

Louis could not let his friend go into that class.

“Oh hey Liam, yeah man let’s just walk this way,” Louis said as a greeting, throwing a demanding arm around Liam’s shoulder and forcefully steering him away from his classroom.

“Hey, I have to go to class!” Liam protested, trying to break out of Louis’ grip. He was not successful.

“Don’t worry love, I’ll tutor you,” Louis said breezily, still leading Liam away.

“Louis, I tutor you! Besides, you’ve never taken governmental sciences!” 

Louis didn’t even pretend to know what that was.

“Friendship is more important that being intelligent right now.”

Liam had other ideas, evidently. “Im going to fail out of school and I’ll have to become a prostitute,” He moaned pitifully, and Louis rolled his eyes.

“Dont be so dramatic,” he told the other boy, ignoring the fact that he himself was probably the most dramatic straight (?) guy in all of Doncaster.

Liam shot him a look. “You have no right to talk. Alright, seriously, unhand me. Your armpit smells like a pile of cat shit.”

Louis gasped as he took his arm away from Liam. “Well I have never!” he said, scandalized. He personally didn’t feel like he smelled like cat shit. That was quite rude of Liam to say, honestly.

Liam sighed. “Sorry Tommo. Just, you better have a good reason for dragging me out of class. I need a good grade.”

Louis nodded, sulking a bit. Liam sighed and rolled his eyes.

“And your armpit doesn’t smell like cat shit.”

Louis brightened up immediately and smiled at Liam. “Thanks! I knew I could count on you!”

Liam did not know why he put up with this crap.

——

“Alright, what’d you have to talk to me about? I mean, this is pretty intense,” Liam remarked, looking around at their surroundings.

Their surroundings being, the backseat of Louis’ car. They were ducking down on the floor in front of the seats, since Louis couldn’t risk being seen.

“Um, I think I have a problem. And I need help.”

Liam’s eyebrows raised. “And you need my advice?”

Louis nodded. “Yeah. Um, something happened just now, and, well. Um.”

“What is it?”

“I rejected a handjob from Eleanor Calder,” Louis blurted out before he could lose his nerve. Honestly, he couldn’t believe he was doing this. But if anyone could help him right now, it would be Liam.

The other boy’s expression changed comically. His eyes widened tenfold and his mouth dropped open a bit.

“What? ELEANOR CALDER?” Liam squawked, clearing his throat as his voice cracked embarrassingly.

Louis cringed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Yes,” he affirmed, not wanting to say anything else.

“Why?” Liam’s incredulous voice cut through the air.

“I didn’t want it,” Louis said quietly after a moment. A shocked silence followed his statement.

“… How could you not want it? I mean, I’m not exactly a fan of hooking up outside of a relationship, but I mean, Eleanor Calder?” Liam struggled to comprehend.

Louis was beginning to look slightly constipated. “Um, what if I told you that I don’t think it was her that was the problem, but rather..”

“Rather what?” Liam urged.

“Rather… It was the fact that she’s a girl?” Louis said slowly, forcing himself to look Liam straight in the eyes. Cold, sick fear settled in his stomach as he waited for his friend’s reaction.

Well, his reaction didn’t exactly give any insight into what he was thinking. Liam remained expressionless, his pose unchanged.

After a few moments of silence, Liam cleared his throat. “So… You think you don’t like girls right now?” 

Louis was grateful that he’d said ‘right now.’ It made him feel like he wasn’t as trapped- he could work with ‘right now.’

“Yeah, I don’t think I do,” Louis said. He bit his lip and waited for Liam’s response.

“Oh,” the other boy said, looking like he didn’t really know what to say. “Well, I mean, only you can know what you’re feeling, Lou.”

Louis nodded. “Yeah. Right now I’m not too into girls.”

“So now you’re into guys?” Louis started at Liam’s bluntness.

“Um, I reckon so,” he replied sheepishly.

“Well. That’s okay, then.”

“That’s okay?”

“Well, sure.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

This was without a doubt the weirdest, most awkward conversation Louis had ever had. He figured it couldn’t get any more awkward than this, so he decided to forge on. After all, it’s not like he could just ask Liam to skip another class tomorrow. 

“And this is why I need to talk to you about Harry.”

Liam looked unsurprised. “I had a feeling this was coming next.”

“I don’t know what to do!” Louis exploded in sheer frustration.

“Tell me about it. Everything,” Liam ordered.

Louis took a deep breath, figured out where to start, and began.

——

“So let me get this straight,” Liam said. “You’re having a major sexuality crisis because of Harry Styles?”

Louis nodded. “Precisely.”

Liam looked confused. “A kid you started talking to only two weeks ago?”

“Yep.”

“And all this happened in two weeks?” 

“Yeah.”

“…Only TWO WEEKS?”

“Jesus Christ Liam, yes, two fucking weeks! Get over it!”

Liam nodded in apology, still looking surprised. “Just a bit quick, is all.”

“Yeah, well. Tell that to Harry’s dimples,” Louis said grumpily.

“Harry has dimples?” Liam asked.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Louis cried, scandalized that Liam hadn’t noticed. “They’re the biggest dimples I’ve ever seen, they’re amazing honestly I can’t believe you’ve never noticed them.”

Liam stared. “This is a lot to take in,” he said after a moment.

Louis sighed, losing his indignance. “Yeah, I know man. Sorry about all this. I know you’d rather be in governmental science right now.”

Liam got his phone from his pocket and checked the time. “Eh, I missed it. And the class after that too, actually.”

“Oops,” Louis said somewhat guiltily. “Sorry.”

Liam waved a hand as though sweeping away Louis’ apology. “Don’t worry about it Lou, for once this was more important than class.”

Louis smiled at him. “Thanks man.”

Liam returned his smile and then clapped his hands, looking serious again. “Anyway, we need a plan for you.”

Louis nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! Yes we do. Enlighten me Liam!”

“Well first things first- I think you and Zayn need to call off the bet. I mean I don’t want to sound smug but-“

Louis rolled his eyes fondly. “Go for it, have your fun.”

“I mean, I did say from the beginning that this would be a bad idea. And I was right! I knew this would happen, I knew it and it happened exactly how I thought it would be. It was a bad idea and you didn’t listen and now look what happened! You should’ve LISTENED. Okay, and now I’m done.”

Louis raised his brow. “You quite finished? You’re sure?”

Liam laughed. “Yes, I’m sure. You’ve let me have my fun. And now I can be serious. And I seriously think you need to call off the bet.”

Louis sighed and nodded. “I think so too, mate. I just don’t know what Zayn’s gonna think.”

Liam shrugged. “Zayn’s our best friend. He’ll understand, probably. And anyway, think of Harry. What if you didn’t call off the bet, and Harry did fall for you, and then he found out that it was basically on a dare? He would think it didn’t mean anything, no matter what you tell him. Even if you feel the same way.”

Hearing this made Louis’ head hurt. “He can’t know. Ever,” he said faintly. Liam nodded.

“He really can’t. Tell Zayn when you’re ready.”

Louis looked at Liam and smiled, infinitely glad that his friend hadn’t freaked out, and that he’d offered him help.

Louis’ phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket, signaling that he had a text message. When he pulled it out and read it, he found that it was from Harry.

To: Louis

Is everything okay? You seemed a little out of it when I saw you in the hall before. -Haz

Louis smiled a truly sickeningly sweet smile as he read the text. Liam unfortunately noticed.

“That from Harry?” Liam asked. Louis looked up and nodded somewhat sheepishly.

“Tell Zayn soon,” Liam continued.

“I will. Thanks, man,” Louis said, and meant it. Liam smiled.

“Anytime.”

——

It was a week later, the following Friday, and Louis still hadn’t told Zayn about the bet. He just hadn’t gotten around with it, was what he kept telling himself. If he was honest though, he knew it was because he was scared. Scared of what the other boy would say.

That night, Louis and Harry decided to see a movie with Liam. They were going to Liam’s house to watch it because they’d spent so much time at Louis’ house that they were kind of getting sick of it. Plus, they wanted to hang with Liam.

Zayn and Niall wouldn’t be there- they were going off on an adventure of sorts. Zayn was taking Niall bar hopping. The two boys had grown very close very quickly much in the same way Louis and Harry had, and were spending as much time together almost as Louis and Harry.

Besides, Louis felt like he’d been neglecting Liam lately, so he thought it’d be a good idea to hang of with him. He missed the sensible boy’s company.

Before they went to Liam’s house for the movie, Louis and Harry went to the grocery store to get candy and food and movies to bring to Liam’s.

They arrived at Walmart and made straight for the candy aisle, making simple conversation.

“Alright, we’re gonna need twizzlers, dots, skittles, m&m’s, pretzels, cheese-it’s and Oh shit, we definitely need Goldfish.”

Harry looked at him. “If we don’t have enough money, we’re leaving the goldfish behind.”

Louis gasped in mock distress as he gathered the goldfish lovingly in his arms. “How could you say that? It can hear you!”

Harry chuckled as Louis stroked the box. “You are a strange one, Louis Tomlinson.”

“Yeah, but you love it,” Louis replied without thinking, and then had to turn away because of fast and deep his face flushed with blood. Honestly, he was going to embarrassing himself all night.

Louis turned so fast that he didn’t see the blush grace Harry’s face as well. 

When they got all their stuff, they went to the cash register and started to pay for their stuff. They were horsing around, joking and laughing, playfully shoving each other as the cashier ran their stuff through the checkout.

She giggled at their antics as she totaled up the price. “Have you guys been friends long?” she said, making conversation.

They stopped, still grinning, as Louis said, “Yeah, we’ve known each other since birth! Divas in diapers and the whole bit.”

She laughed as Harry turned to look at Louis, an unreadable expression on his face. Louis colored slightly and broke eye contact.

When they left the store out the back door, Louis paused to shift the bag so he could grasp it better.

“Hey Louis!” Harry cried, coming up behind him. Louis smiled and turned around, ready to ask what was up, and instead was met with Harry’s arms widespread as he looked at Louis with a huge grin, dimples on full display.

Louis grinned and stepped into the hug, feeling his stomach squirm and flip around in the best of ways. Harry’s arms closed around him, and the curly haired boy laid his chin in top of Louis’ head.

Louis was over the moon with happiness. This was the first time Harry bad initiated contact between them, and it made Louis want to do backflips, he was so ecstatic. Bu he mainly just wanted to stay in Harry’s arms forever, no matter how cheesy that sounded.

“Friends since birth, eh?” Was all Harry said.

——

During the movie, the boys had shifted so that Liam was on one couch, and Harry and Louis were tangled up on the other. Louis was half-sitting half-reclining, and Harry was laying on top of him, his head resting on Louis’ shoulder. Louis was gently carding his hand through Harry’s curls, and Harry was loving the attention. He didn’t dare move his head in case Louis stopped.

The movie droned on and on. They were watching ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Two’ (honestly Louis didn’t know why he always ended up picking chick flicks), and Louis was absolutely scandalized that the younger sister had lost the pants in Greece.

“I don’t care if that girl was my sister, if I was Lena I’d kill that bitch,” Louis glared at the TV screen, silently cursing Effie, Lena’s younger sister.

Harry, throwing caution to the wind, twisted round on top of Louis to that his face was a mere few inches away, and said “I was thinking the same thing, Lou.”

Louis took one look at the smile that looked like it was just for him, he looked at the green eyes that shone with happiness, and he suddenly had a maddening, inexplicable urge to kiss the curly haired boy.

This was not the time, it was not. Instead of kissing Harry, Louis took all his need and let it out by pushing his forehead against Harry’s and closing his eyes, noticing that Harry did the same. They remained there, feeling each other’s soft breath and praying to any god out there for control.

They finally broke contact at Liam’s pointedly cleared throat, and Harry turned around again after sharing a look with Louis.

Louis swallowed hard and looked at Liam, who shot him a loaded look.

“Now you really need to tell Zayn,” Liam’s stare seemed to say. And Louis knew he had to.


	13. Chapter 12

Harry was happy.

In the innate sense of the word, Harry was at his happiest that he’d been in a very, very long time. Lately he’d been spending most of his time with Louis, and this made him feel as though, strangely, he’d found a niche in the world finally. It made him feel wanted; like he belonged.

Truthfully, Louis was turning into Harry’s sweet escape. The fact of the matter was that Robin had suddenly become a lot more violent lately- he’d been given a warning at his job a few days ago that if he didn’t clean up his act (evidently he’d been showing up at work and then doing next to nothing) they were going to fire him.

This brought about an onslaught of fear for Harry, because when Robin was angry Harry was not safe, physically or psychologically. The old insults were still coming- jabs at his appearance and lack of social life, as well as the blame of his mother’s death. 

Harry still didn’t know what to do about that. He knew deep down that it wasn’t him that had caused it, it’d been an accident, but nevertheless that was hard to ignore when Robin was shouting things at him otherwise.

In addition to this, he’d become more physical lately, something that made Harry very, very nervous. And made him feel extremely unsafe when he was home with the drunken Robin. 

The man had continued throwing things at Harry, and despite his perpetual state of intoxication, he began to get quicker. Began to have better aim. The things he threw started reaching their target.

Harry had been unusually good at dodging Robin’s flying objects, but lately he’d been lazy, been too slow. And he had the evidence written in his skin.

The bruises had started to appear on his body, something that he couldn’t help. He tried to drink tons of orange juice to get them to go away faster, recalling something that he’d read on the Internet about vitamin C being good for bruises. It hadn’t worked.

And the bruises kept collecting all over his skin. It wasn’t his fault he bruised so easily. 

This would not have been a problem if Niall was still his only friend. As much as Harry loved Niall and would always be grateful for their friendship, Niall wasn’t the most perceptive of lads. He didn’t see much unless it was right in front of his face. And Harry made conscious attempts to keep his bruises out of view.

But, that was not Harry’s life anymore, because he now had Louis. He also pretty much had Zayn and Liam by default, because they were Louis’ best friends, but Louis was his main source of worry.

See, Louis noticed everything about Harry. Harry could tell that Louis had seen the bruises. The first time the blue-eyed boy had seen a bruise on Harry’s arm, he’d asked where he got it. Harry had said it was because he crashed into the door, avoiding Louis’ eyes. He saw Louis’ classic face he wore whenever he sensed bullshit, and vowed himself to be a better liar from now on.

It turned out that no matter how hard Harry tried, he was simply not cut out to be a liar. So after the 3rd or 4th time of Louis asking how he’d gotten hurt, Harry looked him dead in the eye and told him to please stop asking.

Harry suspected the other boy had an inkling that it was damage at Robin’s hand. However, at Harry’s request he stopped bringing it up.

From then on, Louis insisted they spend even more time together. It was a subtle touch, one that Harry noticed nevertheless. Spending more time with Louis was a blessing anyway, but the fact that the boy subconsciously knew about Robin and was doing this to help keep him safe was enough to twist Harry’s heart into a warm coil of adoration for the other boy.

Harry’s trust for Louis began to grow as the days passed. Not only his trust, but his feelings for the other boy as well.

Harry didn’t want this to happen, however. He knew of Louis’ reputation, and as much as he admired the other boy, he deep down knew that relationships were not his thing. Neither were guys, as it were.

Louis was kind of infamous for being one of the school’s sluts. Harry didn’t think he meant for it to happen that way, it’s just how people began to view him after he’d hooked up with more than seven people at one party (a fun fact that Zayn had shared with Harry out of Louis’ earshot).

And Louis’ prospects were always curiously female, which could only mean one thing- Louis was straight.

In addition to Louis’ indifference to men, he always seemed to be chasing someone new. This was obvious by the obnoxious questions Zayn sometimes asked Louis, (to which Niall joined in on the fun), such as “So Lou, who’re you stalking this week?” “Yeah man, who’s hair are you smelling?”

These questions didn’t exactly put Louis’ particulars about commitment in the finest of lights, but Harry was okay with that.

He knew that Louis didn’t do relationships. And that Louis enjoyed female company for intimacy. And this didn’t bother Harry in the slightest. To each his own and whatnot.

Okay, so it bothered Harry a little. But this was something that he could deal with. Harry was certain that it was merely a hero-crush sort of thing- Louis was one of the coolest people he knew and he was doing things to help Harry. Such as actively making an effort to keep him away from Robin’s abuse as much as possible.

Not only that, but Louis was also a very affectionate guy. He was always touching Harry somehow- a careless arm thrown around his shoulder, a thumb brushing his wrist, a nuzzle into his upper back, a friendly cuff on the shoulder, a playful slap on the ass. It was just how Louis did things.

But it was also the intimacy of some of their physical interactions, the way Louis would sometimes hold Harry’s hand, or put a reassuring hand on the small of Harry’s back. Harry still flushed at the memory of Louis pushing their foreheads together.

Harry also enjoyed lounging on top of Louis, and the other way around. The boy was simply comfortable, that was all.

It didn’t help that he was bloody gorgeous as well.

Harry had already discovered how important he felt when he was the object of Louis’ attention simply because of the way the boy looked at him, but it began to run deeper than that.

Harry began to notice the attractive protrusion of Louis’ cheekbones, the way his eyelashes seemed to go on forever. His jawline was strong, and Harry enjoyed staring at the stubble that graced it.

At first Harry reassured himself that it was mere admiration- he knew he wasn’t and would never be as good-looking as Louis, so he was just appreciating the boy’s handsomeness.

This was all well and good until Harry’s fucking feelings got in the way of everything.

He couldn’t tell you exactly when it happened, but at one point Harry stopped admiring and began wanting.

This was bad. Because Louis was his friend, his straight friend who didn’t do relationships.

In short, Harry was screwed.

This didn’t stop him from hanging out with Louis, however. Why would it? Harry would deal with his… infatuation (he refused to refer to it as a crush) like an adult- calmly confront it head-on and then overcome it.

Harry pointedly ignored the fact that he was about as close to overcoming it as he was to becoming America’s Next Top Model.

But that’s neither here nor there.

So Harry did the best that he could, under the circumstances.

It was a Thursday afternoon and much like he had been doing lately, he was laying on Louis’ bed while the two of them did their homework (it was strange to think they had homework but they did, for some reason) and Harry was allowing the twins to braid his hair. They still hadn’t given up on believing he would take them to the ball.

“Harry, your hair is curly,” One of them remarked matter-of-factly. Harry flushed slightly as Louis shot him an amused look.

“Great at making observations you are, Phoeb,” he said fondly, reaching over to ruffle his sister’s hair. The little girl smiled and dropped what she was doing to go cuddle Louis.

Harry smiled and felt his heart go soft at the charming sight in front of him- Louis’ wide smile all for his little sister as she slotted herself neatly against his side. 

Harry’s sight of the Tomlinsons was ripped away from him however as his head was suddenly facing the ceiling- evidently Daisy had found a chunk of knots in his hair and thought the best way to get rid of them was like a band-aid: rip hard once.

Harry’s groan of pain was punctuated by Louis’ light-hearted laugh and the pain almost immediately melted into pride at making Louis laugh.

Harry shot Louis a mock-angry look when he was facing normally again and tried to keep his face neutral as Daisy continued brushing his hair. Honestly, the things he did for the Tomlinsons.

Harry’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he knew it was Niall, as the only people who ever texted him were Niall or Louis. Sure enough when he retrieved it from his pocket, he read:

To: Harry

Let’s hang out tomorrow, you and me yea? Haven’t done that in a while, I miss you mate! -Niall

Harry smiled at his phone as he typed out a quick affirmative and sent it back to Niall. 

“Who’s that?” Louis’ voice cut through the air, sounding almost guarded; defensive.

That was odd. Why would it matter who he was texting? Why did Louis look … almost jealous?

“Niall, he wants to hang out tomorrow…” Harry said slowly, trying to gauge Louis’ reaction.

“Oh,” was all the boy offered, coupled with an unreadable expression. Before Harry got the chance to ask him what was up, Louis was pulling his own phone out of his pocket.

Harry watched as Louis read whatever text he’d just gotten and reply. Louis looked up when he was finished.

“That was Zayn, he asked if I wanted to hang out tomorrow just the two of us… That’s really weird,” Louis said, furrowing his brow.

That was weird. What was going on with Zayn and Niall? They start acting like best friends a while ago and now they both can’t wait to be with other people? To Harry the circumstance was way too strange to be coincidental, but he was too happy to hang out with Niall to give it much thought. 

He looked at Louis and smiled. “We’ll hang out on Saturday then,” he said, and loved the smile that appeared instantly on the blue-eyed boy’s face.

“You know it.”

——

Louis walked up the steps to his friend’s house, texting Liam for good luck. The other lad was out of town visiting family so he couldn’t be there, but he sent Louis moral support through the phone. Louis was infinitely grateful for this, because he would need it.

This was the night that he was gonna ask Zayn to call off the bet, and tell him the reason why.

He knocked on the door and waited, fear twisting his stomach and festering in his bones.

When Zayn opened the door however with a smile on his face and Louis stepped into the Malik home, he was bombarded with memories of his childhood that he’d collected here- Zayn’s house was like a second home to him. He’d practically grown up with the tanned boy, and he’d spent an inordinate amount of time at his house.

“Hey man, come on in!” Zayn said enthusiastically, seeming pleased at the prospect of hanging out with Louis again. Louis grinned and walked inside, loving the familiar smell of the house.

“Hello Mrs. Malik!” he called into the house, and smiling when he saw Zayn’s mom rush to meet him. 

“Louis!” She cried. “I haven’t seen you in so long! You simply must come over more often; you boys go out too often for your own good.” She gathered Louis into a hug which he gladly reciprocated; this woman was like his second mother.

She released him and said to both of them, “Im cooking, let me know if you need anything. Lovely to see you again Louis!”

And with that she disappeared back into the kitchen. Louis grinned at Zayn who rolled his eyes.

“I love your mum, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. Hands off though yeh? That’s too far.”

“Little too late for that, mate.”

Louis burst out laughing at the horrified expression on Zayn’s face. Honestly, this was why they were best friends.

They trudged up the stairs to Zayn’s room and Louis flopped onto Zayn’s bed as the other boy took some beers out of his closet.

“Still the closet stash, eh?” Louis said laughingly as he accepted the Heineken. Zayn shrugged, cracking open the bottle and taking a long swig.

“Not my fault my mum cleans my entire room. She’d find it if it was anywhere else.”

Louis chuckled, and they spent the next hour chatting easily, enjoying their beers and each other’s company. A while and two beers later, Louis felt that he was relaxed enough to tell Zayn what he needed to say.

He started slowly, not sure how to bring it up.

“You know how you’ve been hanging around with Niall a lot lately?” he began. Zayn’s face tightened minutely- it seemed that Niall was currently a sore subject for Zayn. Louis momentarily wondered if they’d gotten into a bit of a fight.

“Well, when you’ve been hanging out with Niall, I’ve been hanging out with Harry,” Louis continued slowly. Zayn nodded for him to go on and picked up another beer.

Louis noticed that while he was only on his third beer (for some reason he didn’t feel like getting too drunk tonight) Zayn was already on his fifth. He seemed to be trying to get proper smashed, which wasn’t too unusual. Louis thought nothing of it.

“He seems like a good guy and I kind of feel like if I keep going with the bet I could ruin our friendship.” Louis suddenly didn’t want to tell Zayn about his feelings for Harry. Something in his chest told him that it wasn’t the right time.

“So like, if you try to seduce him he’d hate you? Is that what you’re saying?” Zayn asked, looking Louis straight in the eyes.

Louis swallowed. “Well, I don’t think he’d hate me…”

Zayn stared at him for a long moment. “What’re you trying to say, mate?” he said at long last.

Louis took a deep breath. “I’m trying to tell you that I want to call off the bet.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What?!” Zayn was shocked; he let out a bark of laughter that was sheer stupefication. “Why?”

Louis glared at his friend. “I just told you-“

Zayn shook his head very fast and sat up straight, giving Louis all of his drunken attention. “Bullshit! That’s not the reason. I know you Tommo, probably better than anyone, and you would not back down just because you were afraid of ruining a friendship. Of a person you became friends with three weeks ago, might I add. No, that’s not the reason.”

“Well what is the reason then?” Louis asked Zayn angrily, not at all liking the direction this was heading.

“You only have a week left and you know you can’t get it done in that time. You’re all talk, too pussy to get it in the end.”

Zayn was drunk, there was no way he would say any of this sober. That’s what Louis tried to tell himself, but his head didn’t listen and the words that bubbled up unstoppably out of his mouth were pride alone.

“Its because I’m falling for him and on the off chance that he falls for me too, I don’t want this stupid bet to fuck it up!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Louis knew he shouldn’t have said anything. They were fighting, Zayn wasn’t in the best of moods, and he was verbally attacking Louis. Cold, sick fear rose up in Louis’ throat and seized his organs, turning them to stone as he waited for Zayn’s reaction.

His insides seemed to shrivel up as he heard Zayn start to laugh, the harsh, sardonic sound cutting straight to his bones.

“You take one little break from skirts and now you’re chasing dudes now, is that it?” Zayn asked, his voice low and malicious.

Louis swallowed. “Thats not how it is! It’s just Harry-”

Zayn shook his head, still making horrible eye contact with Louis. “No, no. That’s not how it is, mate. How long have you been keeping this from me? Queer!” He spat, glaring at Louis like he was nothing. Like they hadn’t been brothers since the beginning.

“Zayn, what the fuck!? Why are you acting like this?” Louis asked, absolutely horrified at Zayn’s reaction. He’d had a bad feeling, but this was way worse than he’d prepared for.

“How else am I supposed to act? Happy that my best friend is a shirt-lifter? Yeah, okay, soon he’ll turn me gay! Yeah, probably checks me out when we swim and change and stuff! That’s disgusting.” 

Disgusting. The word reverberated throughout Louis’ mind, bouncing sickeningly against his skull. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. 

Disgusting. 

He was disgusting.

Through a fog, Louis could still hear Zayn’s loud voice hurling abuse at him for who he was. Somehow, Louis found it inside himself to stand up, walk slowly and robotically to the door, and let himself out of Zayn’s room.

The tanned boy, his brother since birth, still shouted poisonous words at his back as he mechanically continued his trek through Zayn’s house. Left foot. Step down. Right foot. Step down. Disgusting. Keep going. 

Louis’ inner montage was what kept him moving, out of Zayn’s house, out of Zayn’s life right now. Zayn had no room in his life for disgusting people.

And Louis was disgusting.

Somehow, some way, Louis made it home safely. He walked upstairs slowly, calmly. He sat down on his bed, sat very still while his brain both crawled along sluggishly and whirred at a thousand miles per hour.

Louis first thought about texting Harry, and realized he was out with Niall. He didn’t want to bother the curly haired boy-he had enough problems of his own to work through. Besides he couldn’t very well tell Harry, considering the entire problem was about him. 

He thought about calling Liam, but then remembered that he was visiting with family and probably wouldn’t be able to pick up the phone, seeing how late it was.

Louis then automatically thought about calling Zayn, but then his mind seized up with thoughts of disgusting and queer.

He lied down slowly on his bed, and laid there for a long time. Sleep never offered its blissful escape, and his phone never offered a text from any of his friends.

He fell asleep early the next morning, alone. Scared. 

Disgusting.


	14. Chapter 13

The next morning, Louis woke up feeling like utter shit.

Before he could fully gather his wits, he managed to deduce that he felt massively hungover, which wasn’t even fair really since he hadn’t drank the previous night. He and Harry never drank.

Louis’ insides ran cold suddenly as the real events of the day before slammed into his memory- he hadn’t spent the day with Harry at all, but Zayn. He’d drank with Zayn. He’d lost his friendship with Zayn.

Louis rolled over in his bed, a sick, jagged sensation stabbing into the pit of his stomach. He buried his face in his pillow and willed away the memory of his former best friend- this was too painful.

Louis couldn’t find it in himself to get out of bed, so he simply laid there for much of the morning, flipping blankly through channels on the TV in his room. He didn’t think about much else other than Zayn. Occasionally Harry, but mostly Zayn.

Louis’ phone buzzed at his bedside multiple times that morning, but he was so depressed that he assumed it was all telemarketers, convinced that none of his friends actually liked him enough to text him.

Louis hadn’t known he was this dependent on Zayn. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if it was two days ago, when they were still friends, but now more than ever it brought home the fact that Zayn was going to leave a gaping hole in Louis’ life.

And Louis did not want to have to get out of bed and face that. Seriously, he didn’t even haul ass to the bathroom to take a morning piss.

He couldn’t believe Zayn had done that. Reacted the way he did. Made Louis feel like a piece of shit, and did it so effortlessly, as if he knew exactly how to destroy his best friend. Knew exactly what to say that would hurt him the most.

Louis didn’t know what to do. He needed Zayn in his life. 

He kept his eye on the TV, watching idly as a scene of two guys who were bickering good-naturedly came on the screen, and felt something close to acute physical pain in his chest at the sight. The two lads on the screen reminded him unpleasantly of himself and Zayn, a few days ago.

It felt like his heart was crying.

He quickly flipped the channel, and was startled by a very sudden, seemingly hesitant knock at his bedroom door.

“What?” he managed, having to clear his throat several times.

Rather than grace him with a response, the door slid open, shocking Louis to the point of dumbness as he saw Zayn standing in his doorway.

The other boy looked at him wide-eyed, and very quietly closed the door behind him. The only sound in the room was the TV, which blared happily on, oblivious to the sudden extreme tension in the room.

Louis could do nothing but stare at his friend as the word ‘disgusting’ ran through his head once more. He pushed it to the corner of his mind, and forced himself to think of a dozen snappish, confrontational words to say to Zayn. He already knew he wouldn’t say any of them.

Louis had thought about this moment a lot in the last twelve hours, how he would act when thrust into Zayn’s company again after their falling out. He’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t cry, and was adamantly fighting against the unbearable tightness in his throat.

Louis watched as Zayn turned away from the door to look at Louis. Not making eye contact, the tanned boy slowly walked over to Louis’ bed and sat down on the edge, staring at his own lap. Louis didn’t dare move, it’s not like he could even if he wanted to anyway. He strongly suspected that he’d even stopped breathing in his attempts to not ruin the tense moment.

A tremor seemed to shakes Zayn’s body, coming from deep in his core. The shiver shook Louis’ bed, and he sat in silence, waiting for his friend to say something. Anything.

And that was when Zayn promptly burst into tears.

Louis could only stare in abject shock as his friend crumpled into a pathetic ball of snot and tears and heaving chests and shuddering breaths.

Through the heart-wrenching sounds the other boy was making, Louis could somehow make out the words “sorry,” “Didn’ mean any of it,” “I hate,” “I just,” “Niall,” “Louis,” and “I’m sorry.” 

Louis had no idea what the fuck he was meant to do. Last night Zayn had basically ruined their friendship by not accepting Louis for his sexual preferences, and now here he was, in his room the next day, crying his eyes out.

All at once, the harsh words that Zayn had used last night didn’t seem so important compared to the obvious distress his friend was in right now. Louis had never, ever seen Zayn cry, and he didn’t know how to comfort him. Obviously he knew how to comfort his sisters when they cried, he’d hold them close and give them ice cream, but this clearly wouldn’t work on Zayn.

So Louis settled at first with just staring at his friend in horrified shock, mouth hanging wide open, and then he remembered himself and placed a hesitant hand on Zayn’s back and stiffly patted him twice.

For one selfish moment Louis entertained the idea that maybe he should be the one crying instead of Zayn, but pushed it aside.

He tried to think of something inspirational, reassuring to say to Zayn to help him calm down.

“Jesus Christ, mate, stop crying,” was what Louis came up with. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice of words, but it seemed to do its job, since Zayn, hearing this, made an active effort to stop.

It took him a few minutes of gasps and lone sobs and hiccups, but eventually Zayn stopped his crying. For a long moment after he finished, he still sat staring at his hands in his lap, and the part of his face that Louis could see was bright red. 

“Tissue?” Louis asked cautiously after a pause.

Zayn nodded and sniffled, accepting the slightly crumpled tissue offered to him. He blew his nose violently and when he was finished, the two of them lapsed into silence again.

“Lou…” Zayn said, tangling his fingers in his lap. Louis spared them a glance and then looked back up at his friend, humming inquiringly.

“I shouldn’t have said any of those things to you. Yesterday, I mean… I was way outta line, man. I don’t even… Just, know that I don’t think any of those things, mate. Being…” Zayn paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “Gay.. Isn’t disgusting. I don’t think it is, and it was so wrong of me to say…”

Zayn actually looked physically pained by his own apology. Louis was pained too- he knew that Zayn just didn’t do apologies, and this was blatantly obvious by the way he was stumbling over words and rambling. Pretty much screwing it up.

But Louis found that he just didn’t care. Now that he knew Zayn was sorry, he just wanted it to be over and done with. Sure, what Zayn had said would always sting and would always be sitting in a dark corner of his mind, but for now he could forget it and just be glad that he hadn’t lost his best friend.

“Zayn. Stop,” Louis said quietly, gently. “Its okay. Let’s not talk about it again, alright?”

Zayn nodded, bringing up and absent hand to rub his nose. He still hadn’t looked at Louis. Louis continued speaking.

“Now, wanna tell me what that was all about yesterday? Why say it if you don’t mean it?”

Zayn visibly gulped at this and his face contorted into the classic pre-crying position, and Louis was instantly wary. His phone buzzed, but he ignored it.

“Here, drink this,” he said, shoving his water bottle into Zayn’s face. He knew water didn’t particularly help if you needed to cry, but he couldn’t be arsed to care because he would be even more clueless as to what to do if Zayn started crying. For a second time.

Zayn took a sip from the water bottle and then set it down. He looked as though he was completely clueless as to where to start.

“For fuck’s sake just say something,” Louis urged. He wasn’t being the nicest of lads, but, neither had Zayn last night. He felt like a little payback was in order.

“Um. Well. I think the reason I freaked out on you was, because, um…” Zayn trailed off, STILL not looking at Louis.

“Because?” 

“BecauseIthinkImightbegaytoo,” Zayn blurted out in one long breath.

Louis briefly considered being cruel and asking him what he’d said, but to be honest he’d heard every word. He’d heard it all, and if he really thought about it, it made sense. He also chose not to react to Zayn’s confession, no matter how unexpected, because the lesser of a deal he made it out to be, the better Zayn would feel.

“So then what made you say those things to me, mate?” Louis asked.

“Um, I wasn’t really having the best time with… Liking guys yesterday, alright?” Zayn said, his tone carefully guarded. 

Well, that was unexpected. “Did something happen?” Louis asked, bewildered. But all of a sudden, he remembered the curiousness of the last two days, and something clicked.

“Niall,” he breathed, somehow knowing it had something to do with the Irish lad.

Zayn’s reaction to the name told him everything he needed to know. Zayn stiffened and buried his face in his hands. 

Louis patted him encouragingly on the back again, willing him silently to start speaking. He got his wish a few minutes later.

“When we first made the bet, you started hanging out with Harry all the time… And Liam started hanging out with some girl named Danielle-“

“WHAT?” Louis squawked, interrupting Zayn completely. “Has Liam got a girlfriend?! Why the fuck hasn’t he told me?!”

Zayn snorted, momentarily forgetting his mood. “Probably worried you’d make sex jokes about it all the time.”

Louis scoffed. “Obviously, that’s the point isn’t it? I will be having a chat with him soon, rest assured. Anyway, back to your story.”

“Well, you and Liam had both found people you wanted to be with, so I sort of… started hanging around with Niall a lot, since he usually hung out with Harry, who was with you.

“And so, I don’t know, we just got close really fast. Like, we were ways together and doing random stuff, it was just really… Fun.

“Until I began to have….. Unwanted feelings. I didn’t ignore them like I know you did - hey, don’t give me that look, I know you, remember? - and I thought about them, contemplated if I was gay or not.

“And then it just kept escalating, my feelings for the guy, and it all boiled down to one moment on Thursday… I tried to … Make a move on him, and..”

“And?” Louis asked, afraid to hear the answer but deep down knowing what was coming.

“He.. Didn’t want it. Didn’t want me, didn’t like it,” Zayn stuttered, his voice beginning to waver again. 

“Ugh, mate,” Louis said, throwing all caution to the wind, rubbing a hand on Zayn’s shoulder.

Zayn shook his head very quickly, signaling that this was something he wanted to skate over. “And so that’s the reason I said those things… I wasn’t happy about being gay, I was angry at the whole idea…”

Louis raised his eyebrows. “That’s the whole reason?”

Zayn squeezed his eyes shut. “No… I was jealous, mate. I can see how much you like Harry, and I can see that he likes you too… I was jealous of your possibilities of happiness. Man, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

Louis nodded, accepting the apology. “But Harry doesn’t like me like that,” He said.

“Oh shut the fuck up, yes he does,” Zayn said, rolling his eyes. Louis scoffed.

“No he doesn’t, but we aren’t talking about me and Harry. We’re talking about you, twat. Now, have you said you’re gay yet?” Louis asked.

Zayn’s response was coated with sass. “I just told you I was before mate, come on.”

“I mean have you looked anyone in the eye and said it?” 

Zayn shrugged. “No.”

“Look me in the eye and say it.”

“What does it matter?” Zayn asked, sounding annoyed.

“Just do it, Christ!”

“Fine. I’m gay,” Zayn ground out, looking at Louis for the first time since he’d shown up and making almost unnaturally forced eye contact with him.

“What was that? Sorry, didn’t hear you.”

“I’m gay,” Zayn said through gritted teeth, glaring at Louis.

“What was that? Sorry, didn’t quite catch it,” Louis said again airily, just to be an asshole.

“I’M FUCKING GAY, YOU FUCK!” Zayn finally roared, shooting daggers at Louis out of his eyes. Louis beamed.

“Thats all I wanted to hear, mate. You didn’t have to scream it,” He said giggling, dodging the half-hearted slap Zayn threw his way.

Louis finally chose that moment to look at his phone and check his messages, coming to the conclusion that he did indeed have friends who liked him. 

His heart sunk however when he saw 2 missed calls and 4 text messages from Harry. Harry never texted more than one message at a time and never called more than once, so something wasn’t right.

Harry hadn’t left any voicemail, so Louis read through the texts he’d gotten. They all said about the same thing- ‘lets do something, I need to get out of my house.’

Louis’ blood ran cold as he realized the implications behind these messages- Harry was trying to tell him that his house, with Robin, wasn’t safe right now. Louis remembered that he and Harry had plans that day, and promptly leapt out of bed.

“Where the fuck’re you going?” Zayn asked lazily, laying back on his friend’s bed and relaxing. 

Louis hopped around haphazardly on one foot as he tried to shove his feet into his jeans, and ripped on a shirt with one hand (which was quite an amazing feat, actually).

“Out, going to hang out with Harry. So unless you want to play with my sisters, I’d say run while you can.”

Louis finished dressing, slipped his feet in his TOMS and shot Zayn a look. “Get the fuck up, will you? You’ve had your big gay freakout moment, now it’s time to face the world. Come on pumpkin, you can do it.”

“Fuck off,” Zayn said without any real bite behind his words, and got off the bed, following Louis out of his bedroom and out of the house.

Louis noticed Zayn’s car and had a sudden idea. “Hey, can you drive me to Harry’s house? I’ll tell you where it is, I just want to get there quickly.”

Zayn complied, and they were off. On the way there, Louis sent Harry a reassuring text.

To: Haz

I’m in my way to your house, I’m gonna get you out of there. -Louis

——

When they arrived at Harry’s house, Louis thanked Zayn and got out of the car. Leaning back in through the window, he asked, “Hey mate. We good?”

Zayn smiled. “Yeah, Lou. We’re good.”

As Louis smiled and tapped the car, turning to walk away, Zayn called him back once more. “Hey Louis!”

“Yeah?”

“The bet’s off. Don’t worry about it.”

Louis grinned at his best mate, ridiculously happy that he’d come around. “Mate, I’d hug yeh if this wasn’t already the gayest morning of my life.”

Zayn laughed. “I know. See you later,” he said, and drove off.

Louis started up Harry’s walkway and knocked in the door when he got to it. Almost immediately, Harry opened it and slipped outside, closing it shut very smoothly and quietly behind him.

All at once, Louis was met with an intense rush of affection for Harry. His hair was flying everywhere, his green eyes widely childlike, his shirt was rumpled and his fingers long and clumsy as he scrabbled with the lock on his door.

When Harry turned around to face him, Louis placed his hand on Harry’s biceps and squeezed.

“Alright, Haz?” he asked, peering into Harry’s eyes for any obvious signs of discomfort or pain.

“Im fine,” Was Harry’s response. Louis let the slow, deep voice wash over his senses as he rubbed Harry’s bicep gently again.

“Good,” he offered, and gave Harry a heartbreaking smile. Harry swallowed and looked away quickly. 

“So where do you want to go, then?” Harry asked, making his way down to the sidewalk. Louis walked to catch up with him, a skip in his step.

“Oh, I don’t know! Anything to get you out of your house, Haz, yeah? Let’s go on an adventure!”

Harry giggled- actually fucking giggled and the sound was so endearing that Louis thought he might pass out.

“What sort of adventure?” Harry asked, flashing a smile at his friend.

Louis took one look at Harry’s face and couldn’t help himself. “Harry, you’ve got something on your face!”

“What?” Harry asked, still smiling faintly. Louis jabbed a friendly finger into his cheek.

“Oh never mind, it’s just a dimple.”

“Louis Tomlinson, you are as strange as they come.”

Louis grinned. “Thats why you keep me around, eh?”

They continued like this as they walked along the road, loving each other’s company. Harry loved Louis’ easy mannerisms and kind ways, and was so grateful that Louis had finally responded and agreed to get Harry out of his house. Harry didn’t enjoy venturing out alone, which was a bit of a problem. Thankfully, Louis didn’t seem to have any misgivings about hanging out with him.

Louis was simply enjoying being with Harry, being with the guy he liked and bantering with him. Things just came so easily with him and Harry, and it helped that the boy was so attractive it made him want to scream sometimes. Louis was allowed to feel like a fangirl sometimes, he was gay so it was practically his birthright.

They continued on down the road, chatting about nothing and walking so closely together that their shoulders touched and their hands brushed constantly. Neither said anything about it, preferring instead to revel in silence about the silence sparks igniting between them.

As they walked, Louis could feel himself getting happier and happier. First Zayn had apologized, he’d called off the bet, and here he was with Harry, the guy who he liked an awful lot, and suddenly, he felt a bubble of happiness growing inside of him- one that he couldn’t contain. 

He jumped ahead of Harry, immediately missing the close contact but too happy to care, and jumped up in the air, whooping. It was extremely random, something that Harry wasted no time in letting him know.

“You know sometimes I think you’re mental, did you know that?” Harry said, smiling fondly at his friend.

Louis laughed. “Im just so happy, Haz! I’m really happy! Oh, what should I do, I have too much energy!”

Since they were walking on the street, they were next to the road but there weren’t many people out, save for one truck. Louis chose this moment as a grand opportunity to take his energy out- he decided to play a little game of chicken with the pickup truck.

Louis jumped into the road right in front of the truck, forgetting that his rational mind said ‘no do not do that’ and started waving his arms and shouting at the truck, his own shouts mingled with Harry’s.

Harry’s shouts consisted mainly of things like “Louis what the fuck are you doing, get out of the street you stupid bastard!” and such.

At once, Louis realized his mistake. He was going to lose this game of chicken, and his life, because the truck driver wasn’t looking at the road, but rather at his phone. He wasn’t paying attention to the road and he was going to kill Louis.

At the last possible second, Louis jumped out from in front of the truck and onto the sidewalk, right next to where Harry was standing and screaming at him. He watched dazedly as the truck whizzed past, the driver not looking up once. Louis swallowed hard. He could’ve died.

Harry’s frantic voice cut through Louis’ shock as Harry gripped both of his shoulders.

“Are you alright?!” Harry was shouting in his face, voice shaky and broken. Louis nodded distantly.

“Good,” Harry croaked in reply, and proceeded to punch Louis directly in the face.

Louis let out a strangled cry as he grabbed his aching jaw with both hands, feeling the pain shoot through his skull and explode stars in his eyes. He knew he’d deserved that, but damn, it hurt. 

“You gave me a heart attack, you twat! You complete tosser! Fuck you!” Louis barely heard Harry’s shouting over his own pain, but he got the gist of it.

Louis shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, Harry was already striding angrily away from him, hands shoved in pockets and his head hanging low.

Louis rushed to catch up with him, letting go of his throbbing jaw (god, Harry packed a mean punch, who knew?) and jumped in front of his curly haired boy. He was forced to walk backwards as Harry refused to stop walking, refused to look Louis in the eye.

“Haz, I’m sorry for scaring you,” Louis apologized, trying to keep up with Harry’s angry pace. Harry continued ignoring him.

Louis couldn’t take Harry being angry at him, it made his head hurt and his chest ache. He stopped walking and Harry continued, bumping into Louis. He made to step around him, but Louis caught him just in time.

Louis caught hold of Harry’s hands and gently interlocked their fingers. “Harry,” he said softly. “Harry, please don’t be angry with me,” he pleaded.

Harry finally caught his eyes, and Louis was shocked at what he found. Pure fear was written in Harry’s shaken green eyes, and he looked like he was in slight shock. He also looked angry at Louis, at the stupid stunt he’d just pulled.

“Im not angry at you,” Harry said after a long moment. “Just… Don’t SCARE me like that, yeah? I thought .. I was gonna lose you.”

Harry’s voice broke slightly on the last word and Louis felt like his heart broke along with it. He stepped closer to Harry and dropped his hands, choosing instead to wrap his arms around the taller lad and offer him concrete evidence that Louis was still here, he was alive and with Harry.

“Haz, I’m right here, I’m not leaving you,” Louis murmured into Harry’s soft curls, breathing in their calming, familiar scent. He gently carded a hand through them as he felt Harry bury his face into the warm juncture between his neck and shoulder.

Harry gave a shuddering sigh and relaxed into Louis, his body going slack as he returned the embrace. Louis pulled back slightly, nudging Harry up so that he could see his eyes.

“I’m alright Harry, I’m right here,” he repeated, looking the curly haired boy deep in his eyes. Harry returned the stare wide-eyed, and bit his lip.

Which brought Louis’ attention to his lips. They looked so inviting, perfectly shaped and so very Harry that he felt a burning urge to kiss them.

He thought back to what Zayn had said earlier, about Harry liking him. He thought about his own feelings for Harry. He thought about the event that had taken place moments before. He thought about Harry’s reaction. 

He thought about kissing Harry.

So he did.

He slowly leaned forward, not breaking eye contact until he was close enough to Harry, when he finally slipped them closed. He leaned closer, slowly, until his nose gently bumped Harry’s and he titled his head slightly, feeling Harry do the same. Louis drew up all of his courage and moved that last bit of space, and their lips brushed for the first time, softly and achingly sweet. 

Harry gasped into the kiss and moved back slightly, but Louis moved with him and kept their lips touching. Slowly, Harry began to relax as well, and started returning the kiss. He opened his mouth slightly and caught Louis’ bottom lip between his own. Their mouths moved softly together, a sweet close-mouthed kiss, and they separated a short time after as it naturally came to a close.

Louis pulled back slightly and opened his eyes, still very close to Harry, and savored the sight he was met with.

Harry still had his eyes closed, the curve of his eyelashes resting gently in his cheekbones. His lips were slightly parted, and his cheeks flushed. 

When he opened his eyes to find Louis staring at him in awe, he smiled a breath-taking smile and blinked happily. Louis, unable to help himself, leaned forward and kissed each of his dimples.

“I’m right here, Haz,” he repeated softly. “Im not going anywhere. I promise.”


	15. Chapter 14

The next few weeks were a whirlwind of happiness for Louis. He was finally with Harry, in the way that he had completely wanted to be. Harry seemed overjoyed to be with him as well, and they were keeping it quiet for now. Neither was particularly bothered by the slight secrecy, so it wasn’t a problem.

They hadn’t labelled anything. Louis knew he was gay, he’d accepted it for the most part and it didn’t really bother him because he had Harry. But he couldn’t quite yet stomach the term “boyfriends,” so that wasn’t what they called each other. 

When talking to maybe Zayn or Liam or Niall (the only people who knew about the relationship), they occasionally referred to each other as ‘my boy.’ And that was good enough for them. They didn’t really use pet names either, even when it was just the two of them. A few were alright, but any that were overly sappy they stayed strictly away from.

Louis was happy for Liam as well, because he’d managed to get himself a girlfriend. Confronting Liam about it at lunch one day had been a great memory too.

“Liam! So a little birdy tells me that you’re seeing someone.”

“Birds can’t speak, Louis…” Liam had said shiftily, clearly stalling. Louis grinned.

“That’s okay because it’s a figure of speech. Now tell me! What’s goin on between you and Danielle Peazer?” Louis asked, a predatory grin melding itself into his skin.

Liam swallowed visibly, still trying to put Louis off. “Um, who was this birdy anyway?”

Louis rolled his eyes, losing patience. “For Christ’s sake Liam, it was Zayn! Now do you have a girlfriend or not?!” 

Liam blushed. “……Yes.”

Louis immediately started crooning obnoxiously, eager to make this as embarrassing and painful for his friend as possible (it was his duty as best friend to do so).

“Awwwww my baby is growing up! I feel like a proud parent,” Louis gushed obnoxiously, wiping a fake tear away and pinching Liam’s cheek. Liam sort of looked like he wanted to jump off a bridge.

“Now, tell me everything. Have you two had sex yet? Make sure you’re being safe Liam! We don’t want you to get herpes! You better be using a condom! THINK OF THE HERPES, LIAM!”

That last part had been shouted across the entire cafeteria, because Liam by that point had already jumped up and began walking away from the table as fast as possible. 

Louis looked around at his friends in bewilderment. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. Zayn and Niall had just burst into laughter while Harry had smiled at him, gently lacing their fingers together under the table, hidden from sight. 

“You are too much,” Harry said grinning, and Louis grinned back, an intense urge to kiss Harry rushing through his blood. He suppressed it though, instead settling for squeezing Harry’s hand. Kissing could be saved for later, among other things.

Another thing that had changed and settled down were the Zayn and Niall situation. Since Zayn had made his move on Niall (Louis never found out exactly what said move entailed), at first things between the two had been awkward, incredibly stilted and uncomfortable. The two stopped hanging out as much, and the whole affair was just painful. Zayn had kept mostly to himself, and Niall had turned to his football buddies because Harry was with Louis all the time. Liam was of course with his new girlfriend, so he wasn’t exactly available all that much.

However, Zayn and Niall’s friendship was still under the surface. Although Zayn’s attraction to the Irish lad had driven a stake in between them, they both still felt the pain of a lost friend. And neither of them liked it. At all, in fact.

So basically it was a good thing for them Harry and Louis had finally gotten together. Since they became an item, they started spending more time together (which had seemed impossible before but they had discovered since was in fact very possible), they’d also started to be kind of hard to talk to when they were together because of the sheer happiness they possessed with each other. This included when they were all in school.

Since their social studies teacher, Ms Henney (now Mrs Glenn) had gotten married, she was now on a honeymoon for an extended period of time. Their substitute teacher that was now teaching their class seemed to be about eighteen years old and looked as though she had no idea how to handle a classroom full of high-schoolers. So, she didn’t even try and let them handle themselves.

Harry and Louis loved this, of course. They spent the entire class everyday talking, laughing, joking around with each other. And it was great for them.

However, at the time it hadn’t been great for Zayn and Niall. Since the incident they hadn’t exactly been on speaking terms, but neither of them had friends in the class besides Louis and Harry, who they couldn’t really talk to. So they were, by no means of their own, stuck together by default.

At first, they hadn’t known what to do, what to say to each other. Zayn was so hurt and so embarrassed and Niall was so embarrassed too and it was just so awkward.

But gradually, very gradually, they’d began talking again. Zayn had done his best to suppress his feelings for Niall (which was admittedly harder than he’s expected it to be but he kept at it) in order to rebuild their friendship as effortlessly as possible. Niall had appeared to be trying to do the same. He’d missed their friendship almost as Zayn had, simply because they’d had so much fun together.

So in that social studies class, without Harry and Louis to talk to, Zayn and Niall recovered their friendship, allowed it to bloom and flourish once more.

Occasionally it was hard for Zayn to handle the fact that all Niall would ever be was a friend, but he’d rather have Niall’s friendship than not have him in any way at all. So he accepted it. 

And they were both relieved that their friendship was saved. They’d had a hell of a time together. Zayn hadn’t completely ruined things between them, and Niall was open-minded enough to look past Zayn’s unwanted advances.

Overall, the next few weeks were great.

Louis personally felt like he couldn’t be happier. However, happiness had nothing to do with it when he felt as sick as he did one Friday during school.

During lunch, he barely said anything, much to the general shock of his friends. He simply sat there in a daze, resting his head on his arms on top of the table. He felt too sick and tired to eat anything, and he was shivering like mad.

His throat felt like it was clogged with swelling, and every swallow was accompanied with raw pain as his sore throat worked to accommodate his basic needs. He was unable to focus on a certain thing for more than a few seconds at a time, and his head was throbbing dully.

Louis was not feeling well, to say the least.

Harry was the most worried out of all of them, rubbing a hand on Louis’ back in a way that could still technically be construed as heterosexual.

“You okay, Lou?” Harry asked quietly, concern seeping into his voice. Louis groaned in response. Usually he didn’t like to make a big deal when he didn’t feel well, but he didn’t care currently.

“Don’ feel well,” He muttered into his arms, his words coming out muffled and slightly slurred. This evidently didn’t do anything to calm Harry’s nerves, because his hand came up to grip Louis on the shoulder.

“Do you want to go home? You can probably leave if you feel this terribly,” Harry offered in a tone that sounded like he was trying to reassure Louis, but didn’t quite succeed.

Louis waited a moment to respond, which gave Harry time to exchange nervous looks with the rest of the table over Louis’ head, before the boy in question grunted an affirmative.

Harry glanced back down at the boy on the table and felt a stab of pity for him. He leaned down until his mouth was almost brushing over Louis’ ear and whispered to him.

“Do you want me to take you home and take care of you?”

Louis picked up his head then and his bleary eyes met Harry’s, unfocused and glassy. He nodded and gave a wide yawn, rubbing his eye with his hands in a curiously childlike fashion. The sight did funny things to Harry’s stomach.

However, instead of dragging Louis off into the bathroom so they could have a nice snog (which was what seemed to be happening rather often lately), Harry dutifully helped Louis up from the table.

“Alright lads, I’m gonna bring Lou home. See you later,” harry said, and lead Louis away while the boys chorused farewells and told Louis to feel better.

As they walked out of the school, Louis was shivering so much that it ought to be illegal. He couldn’t remember a time when he was ever this cold. His teeth were crashing together rapidly, his arms were folded tightly against his body, and his skull was in unforgiving agony.

It barely had registered in Louis’ mind that Harry was right with him as they exited the school, but when Harry wordlessly offered Louis his own comfortable hoodie, Louis was so grateful that he wanted nothing more than to snuggle up to Harry for the rest of his life and never leave his side. 

He basically got his wish when they arrived at home. The bus ride home had been annoying- the large bus bounced and jostled at every pothole and bump in the road and it had been a lot for Louis’ aching head to handle.

As soon as they walked through the door, they thankfully discovered no one was home as Harry shepherded Louis upstairs to his room and helped him lay down on his bed.

Louis watched with a detached sense of reality through his fever as Harry left the room and came back after a short while with a pile of the coziest woolen blankets that the Tomlinsons owned. Louis was struck with how much Harry was doing for him. 

He mustered up what little strength he possessed and motioned for Harry to join him on the bed. Through the haze in Louis’ vision, Harry seemed to be debating on what to do. He settled on going over to Louis and pressing a gentle kiss on his forehead, causing Louis to close his eyes at the sheer affection of the gesture.

Harry then leaned in close again and placed a quick kiss on Louis’ trembling lips, short enough that he wouldn’t catch whatever Louis had. He ran a hand through the other boy’s light brown hair, and whispered softly, “I’ll be right back okay? I’m just gonna get you some food, just try to sleep.”

Louis croaked unintelligibly in protest, but Harry payed him no mind so he was left to watch Harry leave him for downstairs.

Louis wasn’t exactly sure how long Harry was downstairs for. He suspected that he’d faded in and out of consciousness courtesy of his fever, but when Harry finally returned he fought to stay conscious for good. He didn’t want to miss Harry being there.

Harry, being the generous person that he was, had gone downstairs and made chicken noodle soup and tea for Louis. Of course, the soup was microwaved and from a can, and tea was easy to make, but the gesture was so sweet that it made Louis want to burst into tears. He wasn’t sure if that wasn’t just the illness talking though.

Harry also brought up some Advil and a glass of water, which Louis took right away. The sooner his headache went away the better.

Harry placed the tray of food on top of Louis’ lap when the boy had managed to maneuver himself into something that vaguely resembled a sitting position.

Louis offered Harry a meek, watery smile of thanks and briefly considered asking the curly haired boy to feed it to him, but decided against it. He wasn’t a complete girl (although he admitted to himself being spoon-fed by Harry had a certain, strange and inexplainable appeal).

After Louis had finished his soup and tea (a feat that had taken a lot longer than either had anticipated), Harry took the tray away from him and placed it quietly on his bedside table. He then started removing his jumper and his trainers, and helped Louis move over on his bed.

Harry laid himself down next to Louis and opened his arms. Louis felt the low squirm of pleasure in his stomach as he scooted over into Harry’s arms, and fell relaxed completely, loving the warmth and scent that Harry provided. He laid his head on Harry’s chest, listening to the heartbeat beneath him. Harry wrapped his arms around Louis and cuddled him, running a fond hand through Louis’ hair.

And that was how Louis fell asleep- sick, safe, and full of affection for Harry.

——

Blistering heat.

That was the first thing Louis felt when he woke up. His fever had broken, he suspected, because he felt like he was about a thousand degrees, wrapped up in his blankets like he was. He turned his head and was met with an eyeful of sleeping Harry.

Sleeping Harry was one of Louis’ favorites. His lips got all puffy and adorable and Louis just wanted to lean forward and bite at them a little. His hair got wild as well, even more so than usual.

Harry was simply too attractive for his own good.

Momentarily ignoring the problem of his imminent death by heatstroke, Louis leaned forward and kissed Harry, lips sliding over Harry’s full ones smoothly and effortlessly. He loved kissing Harry, felt like he could drown in him and never care.

When Harry began to stir as a result of Louis’ ministrations, he started to murmur nonsense as he came to. Louis smiled at him as he woke up and felt that it was time to get up for him as well, he was sweating so much that it was almost offensive and he just really, really needed a piss.

He somehow untangled himself from the multitude of blankets that he was artfully wrapped in and greeted the cool air with a breath of relief- the chill washed repentantly over his heated skin.

When he got back from the bathroom, he quickly dressed into regular clothes (he wasn’t sure how it happened but he’d woken up in only boxers. Who knew?) and shook Harry’s leg, trying to wake him up for a second time.

Harry jolted awake this time and sat straight up looking around frantically, his hair flying every which way. He looked utterly ravished. Louis loved it.

“Wha time izzit?” Harry slurred, his brain not entirely caught up with his mouth.

Louis smiled and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Harry’s cheek. He glanced at the clock and said, “It’s four in the morning.”

Then he looked at the clock again. “Its four in the morning!!?”

Harry looked at him for a beat longer as if trying to understand what was truly going on, and groaned as he realized, flopping back down on the bed. 

“Go back to sleep Lou, it’s too early to be alive. Plus you’re sick.”

Louis took a running leap onto the bed and grinned when Harry groaned in pain and squeezed his eyes shut. It probably didn’t help anyone that Louis had landed knees-first in Harry’s lap.

“But I don’t feel sick! Come on Harry, let’s get out of here! I want to go on an adventure, come on!”

Harry cracked open one eye incredulously as he shoved Louis off his lap. “Last time you said that to me you literally jumped in front of a truck.”

Louis scoffed. “Thats preposterous!” He spluttered indignantly. “I never did anything like that!”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I was there, twat. Member I punched you after? And then we kissed? If you forgot that I’ll punch you again,” he added suspiciously.

Louis backtracked, realizing his mistake. “How could I forget that of course I didn’t forget! Silly me! Now let’s go.”

This time Louis took Harry’s arm and yanked with all his strength- it’s a wonder Harry’s arm didn’t pop out of the socket, really.

Once Harry was up off the bed and glaring murderously at Louis, Louis beamed at him and said, “Lets go get some Ben & Jerry’s.”

Harry couldn’t argue with Ben & Jerry’s, as it turned out.

They quietly snuck downstairs and out the door, careful not to wake up any of Louis’ family. They decided to walk to the twenty-four hour convenience store because the bus would probably be filled with complete sketches at this hour.

The walk was thankfully uneventful. Louis and Harry simply enjoyed each other’s company, and Louis didn’t spontaneously jump in front of any trucks. Harry privately considered that a success.

When they finally arrived at the Walmart, Louis made a beeline for the refrigerated section, eager to get fudge brownie ice cream. Harry was more of a chunky monkey person himself, to be quite honest.

The ending of the new song by Usher, “Scream,” was playing softly in the background of the store, so Louis decided to be a bit mischievous and whisper some of the lyrics into Harry’s ear, expecting the other boy to laugh and push him away.

“If you wanna scream yeah, let me know and I’ll take you there,” Louis whispered into Harry’s ear, lips brushing the outer shell and breath wafting over it.

What Louis didn’t expect were Harry’s eyes to close and the other boy to let out a brief, almost inaudible whimper, of sorts.

Louis thought it might be the hottest thing he’d ever heard.

“Christ Harry, if I knew you’d react that way to cheesy song lyrics I’d have done that a while ago,” Louis murmured, sneaking his arms around Harry’s waist and pulling him close.

Harry opened his eyes halfway and smiled lazily, his dimples making a half appearance and teasing Louis to no end.

He leaned forward and was about to kiss his Harry senseless when the curly haired boy suddenly jerked away, looking at the ceiling alertly.

“This new song that’s playing, I know it!” Harry was saying excitedly. “This is the Ed Sheeran song you showed me the first time we hung out, remember? The A Team!” 

Louis pulled back momentarily and cocked his head to the side to listen for the song, and sure enough the faint tune of the lovely song was playing through the air, just for them.

Glancing back at Harry, Louis discovered the boy gazing at him, a slight smile written in his lips.

“What?” Louis asked, suddenly a little self-conscious at being on the receiving end of such attention. Harry’s mysterious smile widened.

“I’m just really glad I have you, Lou. You’re so nice, funny, perceptive… Hot,” he added with a cheeky grin. “But really. You’ve helped out a lot, with the Robin situation,” He stopped for a moment to clear his throat a bit, “And I’m just so thankful. And it started off so randomly, as well. Who knew that Zayn wanting to be partners with Niall would lead to this?” 

Harry finished with another soft smile just for him, and leaned in to give Louis a hug. 

“Sorry if that seemed random, by the way,” Harry muttered into Louis’ chest after a moment. “The song reminded me of it, is all.”

Louis felt as though a mountain of guilt had suddenly deposited itself on the middle of his chest. This whole thing hadn’t started out like Harry had thought. It started because of a bet, a stupid dare that had Louis going behind Harry’s back with less than honorable intentions, and it had ended with Harry being a great catch.

Sure, Louis had fallen for Harry just as Harry had fallen for him, and the bet was called off, but Louis still felt like a piece of shit.

Standing there at four in the morning in Walmart holding Harry in his arms, Louis knew that if he ever wanted to free himself of guilt, he’d have to tell Harry about the bet eventually.


	16. Chapter 15

In the days following the Walmart moment, Louis found himself getting guiltier and guiltier. It began to get harder to be around Harry, because of the sheer horribleness that Louis felt every time the boy smiled at him. Or kissed him, or said something nice to him.

Louis didn’t know what to do.

So he did what he always did when he was having a crisis- he went to Liam. 

“Mate, I need your genius advice,” Louis said dramatically one day during school. Liam, who’d been walking next to him in order to get to his next class, raised his eyebrows.

“Is that right,” He asked, not even sounding the least bit interested. Louis pouted.

“Yes! And you’re supposed to be excited about giving it to me, so you could act at least a little interested,” He huffed, crossing his arms.

His brown-eyed friend rolled his eyes skyward as he listened to Louis’ nagging. “Fine, I’ll listen to your problems. I’m supposed to hang out with Danielle after school though so it can’t be then.”

When he said this, Liam’s voice went all soft and lovey, even though it was apparent that he was trying to disguise it (he did not succeed). It made Louis extremely jealous that Liam was in a guilt-free relationship. But then again, Liam didn’t do bets on actual people so Louis kind of suspected that he deserved it. Karma was a bitch, but a fair bitch. And that was the truth.

“Thats alright, because we’re gonna skip again.”

At Liam’s dismayed expression, Louis sighed exasperatedly and rolled his eyes extra hard. Ow. That actually had hurt a lot more than he’d expected. He hoped he didn’t pull a muscle in his eye socket. He strongly suspected that he was slightly losing his mind.

Jesus, this whole guilt situation was really getting to him. First his sanity was going, what would be next? His good looks? That would certainly not do. If he didn’t have his looks then he would lose all of his defenses when he stole grapes from the store without paying for them.

He felt so badass.

He also felt like he actually needed to see a doctor about his rapidly deteriorating mental health.

“Um, Louis?” Liam’s voice floated into Louis’ head as though spoken through a wall of bubbles- sort of distorted with a dreamy-like quality.

“Louis!” Louis snapped back to reality as Liam gave him a nice hard slap round the side of the head.

“The fuck was that for?!” Louis exclaimed indignantly.

His friend shrugged, shooting him worried looks. “Mate, we were talking about skipping class and then out of nowhere you stopped walking and got a look on your face that kinda made it seem like you were fighting some intense inner battle.”

Shit. Louis actually was losing it. He hadn’t gotten that much sleep in the days after he’d gone to Walmart with Harry. Instead of sleeping when he should, he’d been spending the time debating furiously with himself on whether or not he should tell Harry about the bet (he already knew he would, he still needed to debate for some reason) and he was contemplating when and how he should do it.

He forced himself to focus his tired mind on the conversation with Liam- he didn’t want another slap. He doubted his poor brain could take anymore abuse.

“Yeah well, those battles are the ones I need your help with, right?” Louis said to Liam, who simply nodded in acknowledgement. Louis hoped the other boy would listen to him instead of going to class. Honestly, he was having a crisis.

Liam took another look at the tight, stressed expression on Louis’ face and sighed, resigned. “Fine, I’ll skip again. But if I fail out of school, you have to be my pimp. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with that job.”

As they walked out to Liam’s car again, Louis thought about Liam’s apparent obsession with dropping out of school. “Why do you just assume that you’d become a prostitute if you dropped out? And why do you think I’d be a pimp?” Louis asked, confused, until his expression changed into a self-satisfied smirk.

“You think I’m badass enough to be a pimp, do you?” He asked with a shit-eating grin. Liam rolled his eyes, not even bothering to answer. They got in the car and shut and locked the doors, as per usual.

“Lou, I’m here to talk about your crisis, not your potential success in the black market. Alright,” Liam said proactively, clapping his hands together. “Talk to me.”

Ew. Louis hated it when people were proactive. He much preferred it when people shot the shit for a while and then eventually made their way to the difficult topics. However, it appeared that Liam was having none of this today.

“Alright,” Louis began tentatively. “Well.”

Liam shot him a look that clearly said “If you don’t stop wasting my time I’m leaving.”

Louis did not want Liam to leave without telling Louis what he should do with his life, so he figured that he should actually try to form coherent thoughts and ask for help.

“Okay,” he tried again, “Well the thing is, I’m really guilty.”

Liam looked skyward apparently for strength. He could sense that this would be like pulling teeth.

“Guilty about what?”

“The bet.”

“But the bet’s been over for ages, I thought?”

“Yeah it has.”

“So then why the hell do you feel guilty?”

“Its hard to explain!” Louis burst out, finally letting his frustration and pain out for the other boy to see.

“Well, try!”

“I like Harry a lot and just I feel guilty that the only reason I ever started talking to him in the first place was because of a stupid bet I made with Zayn! It’s completely horrible of me!”

Liam sighed. “Havent I told you this would happen? Welcome to guilt city.”

“And I can’t exactly just go up to him and tell him,” Louis continued as if Liam hadn’t spoken. “I mean, it’s hard to say, yeah? But I have to if I wanna get rid of the guilt. I can’t sleep because of it mate, it’s ruining my life.”

Liam yawned. “Maybe instead of telling Harry, just have really mind-blowing sex with him instead and see if that takes care of the guilt issue.”

A gasp so powerful it caused Louis to choke on his own spit ripped its way out his throat. “You are being disturbingly sexual, Mr. Liam McLiamPants,” Louis accused, pointing a finger at his friend. “What’s the matter with you?!”

Liam scoffed. “You’ve said and done much worse things, Lou,” he pointed out helpfully. Louis did not appreciate this.

“Oh god, it’s Danielle isn’t it?!” Louis exclaimed in horror. “SHE IS CORRUPTING YOU!” He roared, which was really, really uncalled for considering they were sitting a foot away from each other in Liam’s tiny car.

“Louis, please for the love of all that is holy, stop shouting,” Liam groaned, his hands clamped over his ears and eyes closed in defeat.

Louis shrugged self-consciously and agreed. “Alright, no more shouting. And back to the Harry issue. What am I supposed to do? For real? I need to get rid of the guilt so I can be happy with Harry. And so I can sleep again,” he added, as almost an afterthought.

Liam looked at him and rubbed a contemplative hand over his chin and jaw. “I think you find the right moment, and you tell him,” he said seriously after a long moment. 

Louis took a deep breath. It seemed like this was the way to do things if Liam had suggested it. But deep down, he knew. Was there really any other way?

——

Louis had planned to tell Harry as soon as he saw him next. But he couldn’t, because Harry was already majorly preoccupied with a test he had the next day, and needed to study. Who was Louis to interrupt academic studies with potentially disastrous news?

The next time Louis saw Harry wasn’t right, either. This time Harry was extremely tired and just wanted to get some ice cream with Louis. It wouldn’t be right to dump horrible news on him when he was so tired. He might pass out.

The time after that was wrong as well. Harry was complaining of a headache and that didn’t exactly mean he was in any sort of position to hear bad news from Louis.

And the next time was completely wrong as well, because Louis was tired and it was a Monday.

And the next time after that was wrong because Harry was wearing a blue shirt.

And the next time was wrong because it was raining and windy outside.

Okay, so Louis knew he was avoiding the topic with great skill and precision. He also knew that he really, really needed to tell Harry the truth. He hadn’t slept properly in days, well over a week, and it was really taking a toll on him.

Which was why the next time he was alone with Harry, he made a vow to himself that he’d do it, no matter what.

It was a regular Thursday afternoon and they were chilling out in Louis’ room, watching “Gilmore Girls” and loving it, resolutely ignoring the fact that it was a very obvious chick flick.

Louis turned around from where he was practically lying on Harry and buried his face into his curly haired boy’s chest. He knew it was time to tell Harry. He could feel his throat tightening, closing up as if to try to keep the words from escaping.

He cleared his throat firmly, as though to remind it that his brain was in control and that if he wanted to speak, he would, dammit!

Harry looked down at Louis fondly. “Everything alright Lou?” he said easily, dragging a calming hand through Louis’ hair. Louis sighed at the casual contact- his scalp responded to Harry’s touch by sending pleasurable signals throughout his body.

“Mmmmmph,” Louis responded eloquently.

Harry chuckled. “Speak when you’re ready, love.” 

Louis’ throat suddenly felt closed and tight for very different reasons. He didn’t deserve Harry- Harry was an amazing person and Louis didn’t deserve his affection. And Harry had just called Louis ‘love,’ so he was feeling a bit extra emotional today.

Several times Louis tried to force himself to open his mouth and utter the words that he practiced saying for so long on his bedroom mirror. ‘It was a bet. That’s how this all started.’

But he realized with self-disgust and a sinking heart, that he was never going to be able to do it. He simply couldn’t tell Harry.

He attempted to bury his head even further into Harry’s chest, and didn’t speak for the rest of the night. Somehow, Harry seemed to understand.

Louis had never been more angry or more disappointed in himself than he was in that moment.

——

A few nights later, Harry and Louis actually decided to go to a party with Zayn, Liam and Niall. Louis never really understood why Liam went to these when he didn’t drink. Being the designated driver couldn’t be that much fun.

Zayn and Niall obviously went to get trashed. Ever since they’d patched up their friendship they’d been closer than ever, and they were each other’s wingman. Unlike Louis and Harry, Zayn, once he’d gotten completely comfortable with his newfound sexuality (which, very surprisingly, hadn’t taken very long), he was out and gay to the world. And he was slowly but surely, true to form, making his way through the entire gay and bi portion of the school. 

Niall was of course helping him land such people. And Zayn was helping Niall out as well. Zayn’s feelings had just needed a little time and a lot of rebounds, but he’d finally gotten over Niall (for the most part). But a little leftover feelings didn’t keep him from helping Niall get his girls. Zayn was a damned good wingman, if he did say so himself. 

Zayn’s natural good looks were bait, in a way. They made people trust him instinctually. They also gave him the advantage of being in control if the other person found them intimidating, so he could offer them ‘advice’ (as in, get with Niall) and they’d comply. Zayn’s wingman experiences were sort of like hypnosis, in a way.

But he needed to be smooth for the ordeal. And he’d only be smooth if he was completely relaxed. Which was why he and Niall were already drinking, before they got to the party.

Pre-gaming had become a bit of a habit for them, but it was okay really because they had Liam to drive them there and back. 

When they arrived at the party at 9 o’clock, it was already packed and thrumming with drunken energy. The beat of the music thumped into their bones as they made their way through the kitchen and into the backyard, where the keg was. Zayn had lost track of Liam, but he wasn’t worried. As long as he had beer, Niall, and guys there, his evening would be just fine.

——

When Harry and Louis arrived there a bit later, the party was just as wild as before, if not wilder. As they slowly made their way through the clumsy, alcohol-filled bodies that packed the rooms, they saw an inordinate amount of people grinding provocatively to the music, and several people hooking up in the corners. Louis could see into the backyard a bit, and someone was doing keg stands in the middle of a ring of chanting and shouting people. Louis strongly suspected that it was Zayn, because, well. When wasnt it Zayn?

Louis led Harry to the kitchen and tried his best to make his way to the fridge where he could find a nice Corona or two for him and Harry. He knew Harry didn’t exactly drink but one beer was hardly drinking, it was hardly anything really. He figured Harry would be fine with just one.

Which was why he was very surprised later when he found Harry on his third beer, as they sat on the couch and enjoyed each other’s company. They were the serene part of a very out-of-control party. Louis watched absently as a boy he vaguely recognized from math class puke out one of the windows out into the bushes. Charming.

He turned to look at Harry, who looked utterly relaxed and strangely casual with a beer in his hand for someone who didn’t normally drink. Harry noticed him looking and laid his cheek against the back of the couch, smiling just for Louis.

Harry wasn’t really drunk exactly, just buzzed. Louis loved Harry’s smile and wanted to see a closer look at it. So he patted the spot directly next to him and Harry scooted over closer until their sides were touching. Louis felt his face relax in contentment as his arm settled around Harry’s shoulders, hugging the curly-haired boy close to him. 

Louis reflected on the fact that once he might have been the one outside doing keg stands with Zayn, or perhaps helping his team kick ass in flip cup, but right now he and Harry were sitting on a couch, side by side, surrounded by intoxicated chaos. And that was fine with him.

A little while later, Liam found them and came over to them. He perched on the end of the couch. “Hey guys, I think Im gonna take Zayn and Niall home now. They’re kinda getting out of control. Besides, I think someone threw up on top of my car and I really want to just get it out of here,” he added, looking slightly queasy.

“Alright, that’s fine mate,” Louis said. As Liam walked off, Louis glanced at Harry, who was already gazing at him. Louis’ stomach flipped, as usual.

“You wanna leave too?” Louis asked, and Harry shrugged.

“Sure.”

They walked out of the party not too long after, and caught sight of Liam driving away with Zayn and Niall in the backseat.

Louis and Harry walked back to Louis’ house, settling into a comfortable silence. Their hands slyly wound together as they walked, fitting their palms together perfectly. 

Neither felt the need to break the silence. It was comfortable, safe. Louis still felt guilty, but the few drinks that he’d had were abating the feeling, even for a short while.

He wished he could find a way to tell Harry. It wasn’t even just to fix his own guiltiness, as he’d come to realize. It was also about the fact that he felt like he owed it to Harry. Harry deserved to know the truth.

When they arrived at Louis’ house, they went upstairs and began to watch a movie in Louis’ room. Louis idly wondered when he’d become such an old man, leaving parties early and barely drinking, but found that he kind of just didn’t care.

A little while into the movie, a knock sounded on Louis’ bedroom door. “Come in,” Louis said, and Liam walked in, collapsing down on the bed even there was virtually no room whatsoever.

“You drop Niall and Zayn off?”

“Yeah,” Liam said wearily, sounding like he was half asleep. “When I found them in the backyard, Zayn was doing keg stands while Niall was involved in some sort of ‘Beer Fest’ re-enactment. It was interesting, to say the least.”

“I knew that was Zayn doing the keg stand,” Louis said absently. “Atta boy.”

Harry glanced at Louis and Liam and said, “I think I’d better go. I’m supposed to be staying at Niall’s house tonight, I told him I would.”

Louis gazed at him deploringly. “Why? You should stay here, love. Niall’s too drunk to remember that you’re supposed to be there. Stay over my house,” He pleaded. He ignored Liam’s look as he tried not to think about how needy he was being.

Harry pressed a fond, short kiss to his temple as he let a smile grow on his lips. “I told him I would, Lou. I’ll be with you tomorrow, I promise.”

Louis didn’t want to leave Harry yet. He knew Harry would probably have to walk to Niall’s, because the bus wasn’t running at this time, and he didn’t want to walk him all the way over to the Irish lad’s house. Thankfully, his brain supplied him with an idea.

“Hey Liam, he said thoughtfully. “Mind if I use your car to drive Harry over?”

Harry turned to him before Liam could answer. “You know how to drive?” he asked, sounding surprised. Louis nodded, letting a laugh escape at the incredulous expression on Harry’s face.

“I did learn, you know. My mum just always has the car with her at work.”

“Yeah Lou, you can take the car as long as I can sleep over. I’m beat,” Liam said. Louis nodded, patting Liam’s shoulder as he got up from the bed. He stretched languidly, and grinned when he saw Harry’s eyes following the trail of skin that had been exposed when he stretched.

“Come on Hazza,” Louis said when he was finished, tangling his fingers with Harry’s and bringing them to his mouth to kiss. He completely ignored Liam’s dismayed groaning and simply enjoyed the content expression on Harry’s face.

Louis took Liam’s keys and they were off. As they made their way down the Liam’s car, Louis kept casting surreptitious glances at Harry. He knew it was a bit of a delayed reaction, but he couldn’t help it. Harry was so GOOD, so perfect in looks and personality and kindness. He was Louis’ dream person, if he wanted to dabble into that realm of cheesiness.

As they got into Liam’s car, they realized with slight disgust that Liam hadn’t actually been kidding around before- someone actually had thrown up on his car at the party.

While they drove along, Louis took Harry’s hand and held it on top of the console. It was like a scene out of a movie- the two people, sitting in comfortable silence, holding hands in a car.

Louis loved silence with Harry. It was different than silence with anyone else, simply because it was so comfortable and felt so natural. Anything they did felt like they’d been doing it their whole life. They were simply made for each other, it seemed.

As they got nearer and nearer to Niall’s house, Louis felt his hand grow tighter on Harry’s. He didn’t want to have to let go. He knew it was stupid and childish, but he couldn’t help it. It was Harry. 

As they pulled up outside Niall’s house, Harry got a weird look on his face as a sort of muted buzzing noise filled the air. Louis glanced over, concerned.

“You alright, Haz?”

But Harry was already shifting around in his seat, reaching underneath him. After a few minutes of shuffling around with his hand, he finally produced a phone.

“This is Niall’s phone, why is it in Liam’s car?”

“Probably fell out of his pocket when Liam was driving them home,” Louis offered.

Harry nodded his agreement. All of a sudden, the phone buzzed again and Harry automatically opened it, as if it was a reflex.

“Wait, shit, I don’t want to be reading Niall’s texts,” Harry said, smiling up at Louis and making as if to put it away, but then his face twisted with confusion. “Hold on, but it’s got my name in it?” 

He looked back at the phone. “Its from Zayn,” he said, bewildered. “Hes saying something about yourbiggest secret?”

Harry looked up at Louis, pointing at him, with nothing but confusion lacing through his tone.

And all at once, Louis was filled with the most earth-shattering, blood-chilling fear that he had ever known. He knew what game Zayn and Niall were playing.

Louis and Zayn used to play this game all the time when they were drunk. They’d text each other while sitting right next to the other one and tell the other the biggest secret that anyone had ever told them, and the one who had the most scandalous secret was the winner.

And if Zayn was playing that game, he’d most definitely be using Louis’ secret about the bet. And he had just sent that text to Niall’s phone. They were probably so drunk that they hadn’t realized Niall’s phone was gone yet. Louis’ biggest secret about Harry was written in an open text on Niall’s phone.

And Harry was holding Niall’s phone.

Louis saw it all happen in his brain a split second before it did.

Louis watched Harry look back at at the text. He watched Harry slowly decipher Zayn’s drunken mistakes. He watched realization dawn on Harry’s face. He saw sick betrayal weave itself into the features he’d grown to love. 

He watched as all feelings Harry had ever had for him were torn apart, leaving nothing but shreds and the truth.

“It was a bet.” Harry’s low voice sliced through the air like an accusatory knife. Louis tried to speak, tried to explain himself. He couldn’t speak.

“A stupid, fucking bet, on me, is that it?” Harry’s voice cracked horribly.

Louis still couldn’t speak. There was a roaring in his ears. He couldn’t think. 

“Harry,” he finally managed, his voice sounding strangled and choked. He reached for Harry’s hand but Harry ripped it away from him, and clutched the phone to his chest.

“Just, stay the fuck away from me, yeah?” Harry threw open the door and got out on shaky legs, slamming it shut behind him and walking up to the house, not looking back once.

Louis couldn’t speak again.

By the time he found his voice, he screamed “HARRY!” at the top of his lungs, but it was obviously far too late. Harry was gone.

Louis had had the chance to tell him on his own. And he hadn’t done it. So Harry had had to find out like this- through a drunk text from Zayn to Niall.

Louis had never felt so low in his entire life.


	17. Chapter 16

The next few days were hell for Louis. He could barely drag himself out of bed, even to eat. He knew this wasn’t exactly normal behavior, except what he and Harry had had wasn’t exactly a normal relationship, either.

For the short time that they were in a relationship, they had been great together. They complemented each other perfectly, they had no problems communicating and were comfortable with each other to the point that it seemed like they’d been together for years.

If Louis had just been able to tell Harry the truth about why he’d first shown an interest in him, they’d still be perfect together right now. Instead, Louis had waited too long and the choice had been snatched out of his hands by a simple, destroying text message.

Louis didn’t blame Zayn. It would have been easy to, but he knew that wasn’t fair. This one was all him.

Louis had sent Harry multiple text messages. He’d called him, left voicemails, basically stalked him since Harry’d found out. He’d apologized in every way he could think of.

Louis had wanted to go to Harry’s house, but he couldn’t drag himself out of bed, so he continued his stalking media-style.

Zayn and Liam both urged him to talk to Harry in person. But Louis couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even understand why, he just didn’t have the ability to, it felt like.

Louis knew he should. It was the right thing to do, to talk to Harry in person right after. But he rarely made the right decision. Louis couldn’t force himself to do it.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t stand to see the look on Harry’s face, of betrayal, hurt, disgust.

Louis felt justified in having his little self-pity party. He was the king of putting things off until so much later that it eventually fucked him over so badly that it was beyond any repair whatsoever.

So there Louis laid, in his bed, glued to his phone the entire weekend. He called Harry, texted Harry. Didn’t go to his house and try to explain himself in person.

Harry never answered his texts or calls. And to be honest, Louis didn’t blame him.

——

When Louis arrived at school on Monday morning, he was positively useless. He was a bundle of nerves- he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t think rationally. Not when he was about to be seeing Harry.

Louis wondered worriedly what he’d say, what he’d do. What was he supposed to do? He knew he should apologize, that was a given. But after that? He had no clue, not an inkling.

Louis and Zayn were sitting in their seats in class on Monday morning. Zayn was lounging around dejectedly. He said he was hungover, but Louis suspected he was lying for two reasons. One, even Zayn wasn’t stupid enough to drink on a school night. And two, because Niall was currently out of school, as he and his family had taken an impromptu trip back to Ireland.

Louis knew that Zayn, no matter what he said or tried to convince himself of, still wasn’t over Niall one hundred percent. He liked to think he was, but he wasn’t. Louis hoped Zayn got over it for good soon, because Zayn needed to stop pining. Pining is just not attractive.

Louis tried to remind himself of that as well, because he was most certainly pining. 

Louis tried to sit casually in his seat, but ended up tapping his hands and feet violently and biting his nails from the sheer nerves. He was actually beginning to worry himself. 

What was he supposed to do when Harry got to the room? Was he supposed to run up to him and passionately kiss him in front of everyone, only to have Harry slap or punch him or something equally as embarrassing before being completely shut down?

Louis decided after much consideration that that wasn’t the way to go.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t come up with a plan by the time Harry walked into the classroom, and Louis was paralyzed with fear from the moment he caught sight of Harry’s curls.

Harry didn’t even spare him a glance as he walked to his lonely seat. In fact, it was basically pointed avoidance of Louis and Zayn. Louis swallowed hard, feeling a lump growing at the bottom of his throat.

Since the bell hadn’t rang yet, Louis decided to go over and sit in Niall’s vacant chair. He knew he had to speak to Harry. He knew he would make a mess of it. But he had to try.

Louis felt like his legs were going to collapse as he walked over to Harry. They shook rapidly, nearly buckling several times. Louis told himself to calm the fuck down, but it did little to help. His limbs were rebels, as it turned out.

When he got to Harry’s seat, he sat down shakily in Niall’s desk and turned to Harry, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. He took a few deep breaths to calm his insane nerves. The breathing did little to help him, except keep him alive of course.

Harry didn’t spare him a glance, didn’t give him any indication that he even was aware of Louis’ existence. Louis looked across the room at Zayn in a blind panic, mouthing frantically at him and asking him what to do. Zayn momentarily stopped his moping to roll his eyes at Louis and make ‘go on’ motions with his hands. Louis made a very blatant ‘fuck you’ gesture with his arms (he vaguely remembered it being sign language but he couldn’t be sure) and turned back to Harry, who had still gone on unaware of Louis’ current location. 

Louis decided to begin with a little throat-clearing to break the ice. He went for it.

“Mgmhmhmgg,” Louis hacked. Harry made no indication that he’d heard him.

Louis chanced another dismayed glance at Zayn, who once again made ‘come on, mate’ gestures. He was quickly becoming tired of Zayn’s lack of help.

Louis decided to try again with more human-like methods of communication.

“Harry,” he began in a small voice. This was the thing that finally broke through Harry’s tough exterior- he stiffened slightly at Louis’ voice. Somehow, the action didn’t make Louis feel any better.

“Harry, I’m so sorry. It was so wrong of me to keep that from you, hell, it was wrong to make the bet in the first place. I should never have done it, I wasn’t thinking.”

Louis knew he was fucking it up. He knew. He just had no idea how else to do it. He was messing up his words, his stomach was positively in knots, he could feel sweat beading hotly on his forehead and forming on his upper lip. He willed himself to calm down. He couldn’t stop the words that continued to spill out of his mouth.

“It was so horrible of me, Harry. I never meant it to hurt you, I never wanted you to find out. I never wanted anything bad to happen. We called the bet off weeks ago, if that makes a difference. What we had was real though, it was real. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, I don’t want things to be like this.”

Louis had never been in a more surreal situation in his life. Here he was at 7:30 in the morning sitting in his fucking classroom with people around, by the way, spilling his guts quietly to Harry, who wasn’t quite ignoring Louis and wasn’t quite acknowledging him either.

“I just, I need to say that I’m sorry. It’s shitty but it’s all I can say. I can show you how sorry I am, I’ll do anything you want Harry just please, tell me what to do.” Louis was begging now. Great. He was rambling, he was making a complete idiot of himself and he was fucking everything up. He didn’t know what else to do, say, think, feel. His entire body was humming with nervous energy. He was jittery, he needed Harry to speak, to tell him what to do. He needed Harry to forgive him.

Louis’ heart was beating so fast he thought he might go into cardiac arrest as Harry slowly turned to face him.

Harry’s eyes reflected nothing but dull pain as they gazed into Louis’. Louis felt a jolt in his stomach.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” Harry started, speaking softly and clearly. Louis leaned forward in fervent anticipation. “Leave me alone.”

Louis felt as though an anvil had deposited itself inside his stomach. His chest heaved spastically. His breathe caught in his throat. He turned away before Harry could see the traitor tears collecting in his eyes. Louis closed his eyes as the teacher walked into the room, calling for silence and forcing the students to take out their books.

Louis heard Harry take out his book and flip to the correct page, as if he hadn’t just shattered Louis’ heart. Louis knew that he’d done much worse to Harry. But it still hurt. It was like a physical pain in his chest, being ignored by Harry.

Louis longed to reach out to him, to touch him and hug him and kiss him and just be with him, make Harry laugh and get to see his lovely green eyes sparkle with happiness and life.

But he wasn’t allowed to. Because Harry wanted nothing to do with him.

Louis remained motionless like that, in Niall’s seat, until the teacher asked him to return to his seat and open his book.

Louis slowly stood up as if in a daze. He gathered himself somehow, and instead of walking back to his seat, he walked straight to the door and out of the classroom. He couldn’t be there now.

Louis ignored his teacher’s protests and instead walked out into the hallway. He wandered around the halls for a short while, aimlessly meandering along, lamenting his life. 

And when it became too much, Louis walked himself over to the bathroom. He sat pathetically on top of one of the toilets in that bathroom, and cried.

——

At lunch, Louis wasn’t faring much better. He’d managed to stay in school, at least though. Before he’d been having a bit of a moment and had seriously considered skipping, but he had to get through the day. He had to. 

Louis was going to try to talk to Harry at lunch, but when he got there Harry was nowhere to be found. He spent nearly the entire craning his neck to try to get a glimpse of Harry’s hair, but couldn’t spot him anywhere.

Liam and Zayn were trying to talk to him as well, trying to pep him up about trying to talk to Harry again.

Zayn seemed horrified for Louis. Evidently he’d told Liam everything that had happened during first period over text, so at least Louis didn’t have to go through the painful experience of reliving it.

Liam seemed stumped. “So you apologized and everything?” 

Louis sighed. “Yeah. It was fucked up and I rambled a lot, but I did apologize.”

Zayn grimaced apologetically. “He didn’t take it so well.”

“No shit,” Louis snapped, laying his head down on the table. He wanted to hold Harry’s hand.

Liam, unbeknownst to Louis, shot Zayn a ‘be more damn sensitive, come on’ look. Louis was clearly in a bad place right now, and it was kind of Zayn’s fault.

Except Liam knew he couldn’t really be mad at Zayn either. It had been easy for Liam to deduce that Zayn had a crush on Niall after Zayn told him he was gay, so it was understandable that Zayn was kind of in a shitty mood also, what with Niall being on vacation (and not returning Zayn’s feelings).

Liam knew that Zayn was apparently supposedly over Niall, but it was obvious that he wasn’t completely over it.

Liam vaguely wondered when his two formerly straight, womanizing best friends had turned into gay guys in which one was, up until recently in a committed relationship and the other was (while admittedly still a slut) pining over a straight guy. Life certainly was exciting.

“Im sorry Louis,” Liam said softly. “I really don’t know what you can do.”

Louis knew that when Liam didn’t know what to do, he was really screwed. Liam had never failed him before on the advice front. It hit Louis then, for real, just how deep in shit he was.

——

After school, Harry was walking home dejectedly. Today had truly been a shit storm at school, and he just wanted to sleep. Louis had apologized in first period and it had literally taken everything in Harry’s power not to just burst into tears right then and there. But Harry just didn’t cry, so that obviously wasn’t an option. So Harry had opted for being a stone-cold prick instead, and had ordered Louis to leave him alone.

Louis hadn’t taken his order to heart, if the hundreds of new texts and calls meant anything. Louis had called and texted him all weekend, and Harry had managed not to answer any of them, even though he desperately wanted to. He was infinitely glad that Louis hadn’t come to his house to try to apologize in person- Harry was sure he’d have forgiven him immediately if he’d done so.

It had taken so much energy to tell Louis to leave him alone this morning. He’d been so close to just accepting the fact that Harry had started off as a prospect of the single most humiliating bet to grace humanity, and forgiving Louis right then and there. God knew that Harry just wanted Louis back, more than anything in the world right now.

And Harry especially was missing Louis now more than ever. Harry had spent Saturday and Sunday with Niall, as he’d obviously not been in any shape to be with Louis.

Niall had mercifully dropped Zayn for the weekend in order to hang out with Harry. Normally Harry enjoyed the tan-skinned boy’s company- he was quite funny and played off Niall’s sense of humor wonderfully. However he was Louis’ best friend and as a result, many of his mannerisms reminded Harry painfully of Louis.

So Harry didn’t exactly want to be around Zayn at the time. Niall had opted to hang out with him, and they’d done their best to take Harry’s mind off of Louis. It didn’t work that well considering the amount Louis tried to get ahold of Harry, but the curly haired boy appreciated Niall’s company immensely.

But now that Niall was on vacation in Ireland, Harry had no one to rescue him from his house, as Louis obviously wasn’t going to come over when he thought Harry wanted nothing to do with him.

Harry was scared of what Robin would do, or say to him. The last few days had gotten progressively a lot worse. Robin was becoming more violent, more angry and filled with animosity and aggression. It made Harry feel extremely unsafe, being in the same house as Robin when he was getting this bad. There wasn’t a lot Harry could do to prevent that right now though.

Harry wanted more than anything to tell Louis he was forgiven. He thought back to all the texts and calls he’d gotten from Louis.

Harry actually read all of Louis’ texts and listened to all of the voicemails. He didn’t reply to any of them, but he knew.

Harry knew that Louis was sorry. He knew what they had was unusual- special. He knew that Louis had called off the bet: he trusted the other boy on that. He knew of the multitude of his own feelings for Louis. He knew they’d be able to get through this if he just agreed to try to talk it out with Louis.

And yet, he couldn’t.

He wasn’t sure what was holding back. It could have been the pure humiliation of the entire situation, or it could have been the betrayal, the hurt that he felt deep in his chest. He knew that Louis had no way of knowing that he’d grow so close to Harry during the bet, but it was still disheartening that the entire thing had started off as a farce, merely something to play with Harry’s emotions.

As Harry walked home, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know if he should let Louis know that he was basically almost forgiven, or if Harry should cut his losses and be done with Louis altogether.

——

The next two days continued in much the same way. Louis kept trying, much to Harry’s dismay, to apologize to Harry before first period. Harry still hadn’t come to a decision on what he should do, so he stuck to his trusty instincts and kept his mouth firmly shut, not looking at or acknowledging Louis.

Harry had an idea that he was sort of slowly breaking Louis’ heart. He couldn’t help it though- he genuinely had no idea what to do. He’d asked Niall what to do, but the Irish lad told Harry to do what he wanted.

Harry didn’t know what he wanted to do.

Harry also kept skipping lunch so Louis wouldn’t be tempted to talk to him then. They’d gotten a new substitute teacher for social studies, so Louis wasn’t able to talk to him then thankfully because their new teacher was a real hard ass.

Harry managed to escape from the school before Louis could find him after school, and walked home slowly. Since Monday, he hadn’t actually seen Robin. It was a strange turn of events, but Harry wasn’t exactly complaining. He appreciated having time to think about the Louis situation without worrying for his physical health along with debating with himself whether or not he was the reason for his mom’s death.

Harry’s situation was falling into a sort of deadened schedule. He missed the light Louis had brought to his life.

——

Louis’ life was slowly falling apart at the seams. He consistently tried to remind himself that yes, he had lived before he knew Harry, but he just couldn’t remember how. He didn’t want to remember how. He just wanted Harry back. 

It was Wednesday. Louis was on the bus home from school, wondering what the fuck he was meant to do. He wanted so desperately for Harry to forgive him. He felt the typical withdrawal what comes with a nasty breakup, but he hadn’t ever experienced one this strong, this potent. It was affecting his entire life. Almost everything he did reminded him in some way of Harry.

He already knew what he was going to do after school that day. It was the same as he had been doing for the last three days- Liam and Zayn were coming over and they’d watch movies. Well, Zayn and Louis would watch movies while Liam mostly did his homework.

It was nice therapy for a few days, but by the third day Louis really just wanted Harry back. 

A few hours later, he was lounging on his bed with Zayn watching ‘Legally Blonde’ while Liam did his math homework on the floor. Louis really wished that it was Harry instead of Zayn that was laying next to him on the bed. 

Louis missed Harry. Plain and simple: he missed him so much that it hurt.

——

That Wednesday found Harry at home, cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. Since he’d been out so much in the last few months, the house had gone even further into the realm of dilapidation, and Harry figured he should do at least something to make the house habitable. 

Harry was working mindlessly, washing the dishes when the front door slammed open, signaling that Robin was finally home after a three day absence.

Stumbling and fumbling noises told Harry what he already knew- Robin was completely and irreversibly drunk.

Harry braced himself for the explosion of anger Robin was about to exhibit. Harry knew he was strong. He could handle this. He could. He could do this. He had to.

However, Harry wasn’t prepared for the sheer extent of Robin’s rage. As soon as Robin stumbled into the room, he was shouting gibberish at Harry. His eyes were ridiculously bloodshot- it was a wonder he could still see, really. His nose was red and swollen, his lips parted in a cruel snarl as he advanced towards Harry, hands outstretched like some crude imitation of Frankenstein.

Harry watched in paralyzed fear as Robin came straight for him, yelling something about a lost job. 

Harry didn’t even see the fist fly until it was a centimeter away from his eye. Pain exploded in his cheekbone and eye area as his head snapped back shockingly from the sheer force of the blow. 

The punches continued, shock of agony pounding down on him from Robin’s merciless fists. And when Harry went down, he was rewarded with a vicious kick to his stomach.

And Harry lay there, fighting to stay conscious. He hazily waited till Robin left the room, evidently satisfied, before he stiffly reached into his pocket for his phone. 

He needed to call someone, he wasn’t safe. He dialed Niall’s number, and when the Irish lad answered, Harry’s slurred words told him that he would be walking along the road near his house and could Niall please pick Harry up. Harry snapped the phone shut before Niall could respond.

Harry somehow stood up and swayed dangerously, trying to balance on shaky legs, most likely concussed. He dragged himself to the door and grabbed his backpack, leaving the house.

Harry made it about 200 yards from his house before he passed out. His last thought was that he hoped Niall would get there fast.

——

Louis and Zayn kept watching the movie. It was one of Louis’ favorites, but for some reason it was desperately boring this time. He couldn’t stop thinking about a certain curly haired someone.

Louis’ phone suddenly buzzed and he nearly broke his back diving for it, trying to see if it was Harry. An unknown number on his phone was accompanied by crushing disappointment as he realized it wasn’t Harry.

“Is that Harry?” Zayn asked absently. Louis shook his head.

“Nah, some unknown number.”

“Lemme see if I recognize it.” Zayn took the phone from Louis to inspect the number. His eyes widened when he saw it.

“That’s Niall’s number!” Zayn exclaimed. Louis frowned.

“Why does Niall have my number?” 

Zayn shrugged sheepishly. “I think I gave it to him once. Anyway, open it!”

Zayn had the phone back to Louis, who opened the text message.

Louis felt the cold hand of fear grip at his heart as he read through the text.

To: Louis

Go pick up Harry, his complete dick stepdad just beat him up he called me to get him but I obvisly can’t he’s walking on the road near his house plese pick him up. -Niall

Louis jumped off the bed as soon as he finished the text, casting wild eyes at the boys as he slipped on his shoes and a jacket.

“Whats going on?” Liam asked confusedly. 

“I need to go help Harry. Liam, I’m borrowing your car.”

Louis didn’t wait for a response as he grabbed Liam’s keys and  
sprinted downstairs. He needed to go save Harry and make sure he was safe.

He couldn’t let anything else happen to his Hazza.


	18. Chapter 17

It was a very real possibility that Louis would get pulled over by the cops.

He could not let that happen. But there still was a high chance that it would, since he was currently going about 40 miles an hour over the speed limit, which was not too good in any situation.

Louis didn’t pay any attention to the traffic rules however- Harry and the fact that he needed help was currently occupying all of his attention. He couldn’t concentrate on anything else, anyone else. Just Harry.

Louis swerved wildly out of the way, pulse racing, as a giant pick-up truck appeared out of positively nowhere during a blind turn on his left. God, he was going to get run the fuck over before he could get to Harry. He needed to calm down and get on his game, for the love of god.

Louis chanced a look away from the road (he was really risking his life here, he could hit anything going this fast) and jabbed a finger at the radio, hoping a good song would come on to help him focus.

“WHOPPER NO ONION,” screamed Dane Cook from the speakers. Louis let out a growl of frustration as he switched the station again, definitely not the time for some good ole Dane Cook. Apparently Zayn had taken over Liam’s car and filled it with his comedy tracks. Lovely.

He got a few other crappy songs after that, and finally just decided to forego the radio because clearly, it wasn’t working and he wasn’t any more focused. He quickly turned the wheel just in time to avoid hitting some unsuspecting elderly pedestrians.

Honestly, this drive wasn’t going to end well. But it had to, it had to because he needed to get to Harry because Harry was Harry and Louis felt like he wasn’t Louis without Harry.

Louis turned off the radio altogether and started rapping. “Spit yo game, talk yo shit…” he honestly had no idea why he was rapping some of the rap Zayn liked to listen to, but it was helping him concentrate. 

Louis turned the car violently at last onto Harry’s street, feeling like (and looking like) a sweaty, choked nervous wreck (which just simply wasn’t attractive on anyone but Louis couldn’t exactly help it, could he?).

Louis’ heart jumped painfully in his chest before picking up double the speed as he spotted Harry’s prostrate position on the hard concrete sidewalk, backpack wedged halfway under him in such a way that must’ve been extremely uncomfortable.

Ignoring the fact that Harry didn’t want anything to do with him and probably wanted anyone other than Louis to be helping him, Louis wasted no time in driving Liam’s car recklessly right off the road (he skillfully avoided a giant ditch in the process) and threw it into park as he practically dove out of the vehicle.

He sprinted over to Harry, limbs flying haphazardly in every which direction as he frantically tried to get there as fast as possible. He ran fast, possibly the fastest that he had ever run in his entire life. His entire body pumped adrenaline through his veins as his mind finally focused on one crystal clear mantra- help Harry.

As soon as he reached Harry, Louis dropped his knees beside the boy and immediately turned him over so he wasn’t lying facedown on the pavement. Louis almost threw up when he caught sight of Harry’s battered face and neck. He had a sickening suspicion that the curly haired boy had lots of bruises in other places too.

The first thing Louis tried to do was wake up Harry. He tried gently shaking him, which didn’t work. He said his name a few times, each time progressively louder. He considered slapping Harry, but that felt a bit too feminine and cliche for him, so he settled for shaking harder.

He shook some more before realizing in complete horror that he was probably fucking Harrys brain up since the boy was most likely concussed, considering his facial injuries. Shit. His brain was probably mush by now.

Louis decided to just go with slapping, because sometimes cliches are cliches for a reason- because they work. So Louis, panicking, went ahead and found a place on Harry’s face that wasn’t mottled with sickly blue and purple and slapped, hard.

For all the drama that the slap entailed, Harry’s reaction wasn’t very exciting. He sort of shifted his head around after a moment and gave a bit of a groan. However, this was all it took for Louis to practically dissolve into a puddle of relief right there next to Harry on the sidewalk. Harry wasn’t dead. Harry was waking up. Harry would be okay.

Louis chanced a glance around them at the cars whizzing past. He vaguely wondered why no one was bothering to stop and help two teenage boys who were clearly in desperate need of it. People are truly heartless sometimes.

Louis nearly jumped out of his own skin as he felt Harry move again. Somehow, without his own knowledge, his hands had buried themselves deep in Harry’s soft, endearing curls and were running through them comfortingly.

Harry gave another groan of pure pain as he came to. His green eyes opened blearily, and he blinked adorably, obviously confused as to where he was. Louis disentangled his hand from Harry’s hair so he could caress his cheek.

“Alright, Haz?” Louis asked completely unnecessarily. Harry’s only response was to turn to the side as he abruptly gathered his surroundings, green eyes widening almost comically, and then turned more to the side and promptly puked all over the sidewalk.

Louis felt pity and sympathy wash through him as Harry’s frame wracked with tremors while he was sick. Louis rubbed a soft hand on Harry’s back until he was finished.

So, Harry was concussed. The throwing up basically confirmed it. Now it was Louis’ job to get Harry back to his house. He couldn’t take him to the hospital without a parent as Harry was still underage and therefore wouldn’t be able to sign all the forms. It wasn’t like they were going to go get Robin and demand that he get Harry treated for something that he himself had caused.

Besides, if Louis ever saw Robin again, he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from beating the everliving shit out of the bastard.

Louis ran a hand through Harry’s hair once more and whispered to him, “I’ll be right back babe, don’t move okay? I’ll be right over there.” He squeezed Harry’s hand once before sprinting off to his car.

He quickly got in and drove over to right next to where Harry was and parked in between Harry and the road so the boy could at least regain some dignity. Louis frantically searched the backseat for a water bottle for Harry to drink, and heaved a sigh of relief as he spotted a half-drank one on the floor in the back. He didn’t bother trying to figure out who drank it, but he knew that none of his friends had mono so Harry would probably be safe to drink it. Besides, who gives a fuck? The boy’s concussed, he’s dehydrated and he needs water.

Armed with this logic, Louis jumped out of the car with the water and landed near Harry, who had lain back down on the ground next to his backpack, eyes resting gently closed. That wasn’t good.

“Babe, open your eyes,” Louis said softly, urgently. “You can’t sleep with a concussion, Haz. Come on, let me see your eyes.”

Harry slid his eyes half open. While this wasn’t a ringing endorsement that he was in perfect health, it still reassured Louis that Harry wasn’t completely too far gone. 

Now came the hard part of getting Harry into Liam’s car. Louis silently cursed himself a thousand times over for not taking Zayn and Liam with him- they would have been able to help him.

But he hadn’t, so it was up to him. This was a bad idea, he knew. From lots of experiences of doing ridiculously stupid stunts with Zayn, Louis had more experience with concussions than he would have liked. But at this moment, he knew from the past that someone with a head injury was not to be moved.

Luckily it didn’t seem like too bad of a concussion, after all Harry was awake, but still. He’d been passed out on the sidewalk when Louis found him.

Louis suddenly realized with a jolt that every second he spent deliberating was a second wasted; a second that he could be helping Harry. He laid a palm on Harry’s cheek and felt a flip in his stomach when Harry leaned into the touch.

“I need you to drink this water for me Haz, can you do that?” Louis asked quietly, his voice tight with tension. Harry let out an almost inaudible groan, his eyes slipping shut again.

“Harry, wake the fuck up!” Louis said, panic beginning to lace his tone as he lost some of his calm facade. Harry let out another groan and turned his face away from Louis.

“Let me sleep,” Harry grumbled, his word slightly garbled. Louis felt his heart jump into double time as Harry spoke.

“You can’t sleep, Haz. Open your mouth and drink some water, please,” Louis was begging now. Harry slowly turned his face back towards Louis’ and opened his eyes once more blearily.

“I need help,” Harry whispered brokenly. It felt like he was speaking not just about with the water.

“Ill help you Harry, I’ll do anything you want me to, but right now, you need to drink the water, please.”

Harry reluctantly, painfully slowly, with a lot of help from Louis sat up and parted his lips so Louis could pour water into his mouth. Louis thanked whatever god was up there that Harry didn’t choke, and was relieved when he was able to drink a couple sips.

“Thats great Harry that’s great,” Louis said absently, concentrating on helping Harry. 

Harry nodded, swallowing, and his eyes started to slip closed again. But, at Louis’ ever-present shouting, he was forced to open them again.

Now came the hard part. He had to somehow get Harry into Liam’s car, and away from his abusive household. 

It wasn’t the best move to jostle Harry’s head. However, Louis was between a rock and a hard place at the moment, so he decided to improvise. Figuring that helping a slightly concussed Harry into a car was somewhat akin to helping a drunk Zayn out of a party, Louis did what he could under the circumstances and got creative.

Helping Harry sit up further, Louis stood up and, as gently as he could, heaved Harry to his feet. Fear toiled in his stomach like a million jumpy needles as he helped Harry up. Harry stumbled a bit, clutching at his head with the hand that wasn’t in Louis’. He let out a sickening groan and for a heart-stopping moment, Louis thought he was going to pass out again.

He managed to catch Harry though before he fell, and Harry answered his questions that yes, he was mostly okay and Louis did some sort of complicated shuffle with Harry over to the passenger seat, and carefully deposited him inside.

Louis got in the other side of the car, stepping around the puddle of sick. He needed to get Harry home, and fast.

——

When they pulled up outside the house, Harry was awake but told Louis he had a pounding headache (which Louis knew Harry wasn’t lying about- concussions are pretty intense). 

“Wait here love, I’ll be right back,” Louis said, sprinting to his house. He hadn’t missed the way that he and Harry were acting as though Harry had never found out about the bet- it was as if they’d never had the falling out. Louis hoped with his whole heart that it would last. 

Louis rushed into the house and called out to Zayn and Liam, hoping to god they’d still be there. He almost got bowled over by the twins on his way upstairs, but managed to side-step them before they got trampled. He evaded their redundant questions about the ball. His other two sisters poked their heads out of their rooms at the noise he was making.

“Alright, Lou?” Lottie asked, somewhat nervously. 

“Yeah, everythings just great,” Louis said, rushing into his room. Lottie and Fizz shot each other looks before retreating into their rooms, apparently used to their brother’s crazy antics.

“Zayn, Liam, no time to be lazy dicks right now, I need you front and center chop chop movemovemove!!” Louis yelled at them, clapping his hands irritatingly. The two of them looked at him from where they had been lounging on his bed and groaned.

“Shit, he’s in Major Louis mode right now. Kill me,” muttered Zayn, throwing an arm over his face. Liam rolled his eyes and got up reluctantly, stretching. The two of them were taking their time.

Which only served to make Louis even madder. “HARRY IS CONCUSSED AND BEATEN UP IN LIAM’S CAR, GET THE FUCK UP AND HELP!” 

This brought them out of their stupor. Liam and Zayn jumped (well not jumped; more like shuffled, really) to attention and followed Louis quickly back downstairs, avoiding the twins once more, and back out to the car.

Harry was simply resting in the passenger seat, his face starting to swell up horribly. His lip was split and bloodied, something that Louis hadn’t even noticed and his nose was bleeding. Why hadn’t Louis noticed this earlier? 

He was torn from his inner musings by both Liam and Zayn rushing forward to help Harry out of the car. Although it appeared that Harry didn’t want their help as he didn’t want to get out of the car at all, they made it their mission to hoist him (none too gently, by the way) out of the car and into Louis’ house.

Through the use of a ton of crazy maneuvering and fancy footwork, the four of them somehow got Harry safely up the stairs and into Louis’ room. This time, they were more gentle as they lowered Harry down onto the bed.

“Alright, thanks and all that crap, you two can leave now,” Louis said, waving Zayn and Liam out of his room. The two of them groaned.

“Mate, do we really have to leave?” Zayn asked whinily. Louis rolled his eyes extra hard.

“Fine, you can stay over. But no drinking, the twins are here,” Louis warned, giving Zayn the evil eye. 

Liam and Zayn high-fived in a moment of pure victory as Louis slammed the door shut in their faces. He heard a groan behind him and whipped around to see Harry clutching at his head, eyes screwed shut to ward off the pain. Louis’ hands flew to cover his mouth as his eyes bugged out- he hadn’t meant to slam the door shut so hard that the racket would hurt Harry’s poor head.

Louis went over and sat down on the bed next to Harry, who turned to face him. Louis once again winced at the bruises and cuts on Harry’s battered face.

“Hold on love, I’ll be right back,” Louis murmured, running a swift hand through Harry’s curls, reveling momentarily at the way Harry’s eyes slipped closed at the gesture. Louis lingered for a moment, but then reluctantly tore himself away from the boy and went downstairs to find a first aid kit and some bandaids.

He found none, which wasn’t too helpful. So he decided to improvise with a bunch of wash-cloths, warm water, and salve. He tucked these under his arm as he also grabbed a fresh bottle of water and some bread and some Advil for Harry.

He took all these things back to Harry, who seemed relieved at the bread and water and medicine. Louis helped Harry sit up so he could drink the water, take the pill and nibble at the bread. He had Harry sit up while he got a few pillows from his sisters’ rooms and put them on his bed so Harry would be propped up, instead of laying down.

Louis instructed Harry to sit back against the pillows while he cleaned him up. He was very nervous as he’d never treated anyone’s wounds before, so this would be a first.

Louis sat beside Harry in the bed and leaned in close to inspect the cuts on his face (and okay, so maybe that he could be close to Harry again). From this close proximity, he could see every eyelash, every flash of pain in the expressive green eyes. Louis gulped and force himself to move back before he kissed Harry- something he knew the other boy wouldn’t want.

“Alright, I’ll start with your nose then,” Louis said hesitantly, and set to work at Harry’s nod. Louis worked diligently, carefully, calmly. He cared for Harry with affection that ran so deep he could feel it in his veins, traveling to his fingertips to fuse into Harry’s skin, all the love and care that he didn’t get at home. Louis couldn’t tell how long he cleaned up Harry’s face for, clearing away the blood and sick and sweat that had tarnished the other boy. His chest ached for this boy, this beautiful beautiful boy who had been given the shittiest life imaginable.

Louis just wanted to make it better, he wanted to take away all the pain and keep it in himself, so long that Harry would never hurt again. He guessed that’s why he worked to clean Harry up so well- he wanted to take away the pain.

And the knowledge that Louis himself was the cause of some of that pain felt like a stake driving through his heart every time the thought pierced his mind.

——

After Louis finished cleaning up Harry’s face, he opened his mouth to say something, but caught sight of Harry’s unwavering gaze right on him and lost his train of thought. And his future train of thought too evidently, since he couldn’t think if anything to say after that too.

Louis sat there, losing himself in Harry’s green eyes while he stared right back, an unreadable look in his eyes. Louis didn’t know how long they sat there, making intense eye contact, the weight of the past few days looming between them, but the spell was broken when Harry blinked. 

Coughing uncomfortably, Louis looked away from Harry’s hypnotic gaze and set the cloth down on his floor. He felt as though he should apologize, for some absurd reason.

“I’m sorry it had to be me to pick you up and help,” Louis said quietly, wishing the words weren’t his to say. “I know you’d rather have had Niall come, but he’s in Ireland.”

Harry didn’t seem to have any response to this other than to keep staring at Louis. Louis took this as his cue to get up from the bed. He tried not to think about what he was doing, as it was extremely stupid to leave a concussed person unattended. But it was too painful to be in the same room as Harry when he was unwanted. He’d get Zayn to watch over Harry. 

“Uh, I’ll leave you alone now. Zayn will probably stay with you and.. Yeah,” Louis said, inching towards the door, heart sinking and deflating with every step.

——

Harry watched with detached eyes as Louis walked towards the door, ready to leave him just like that, after he’d taken care of Harry so nicely and gently. It didn’t seem fair that he was leaving.

And despite the silent treatment Harry had been giving him for the past few days, Harry just didn’t want him to leave. That’s all there was to it- Harry wanted Louis to stay with him.

And if the melancholy expression on Louis’ face was anything to go by, Louis didn’t want to leave, either. 

So Harry called him back. He was done with ignoring Louis anyway. He was done being angry about being the butt end joke of the bet. He was just done. And he missed Louis.

“Lou,” He almost whispered, his voice was so quiet. “Louis, you can stay with me if you want.” 

He waited with bated breath as Louis paused and turned back around. “…. You want me to stay?” he asked, as though he hadn’t heard Harry right. Harry refrained from rolling his eyes only because he knew it would make him nauseous again.

“Yes, I want you to stay. Come here,” He said, letting a smile grace his features and patting the bed he was sitting on.

Louis smiled tentatively and took a few steps towards the bed. It took a little more encouragement from Harry, but eventually he got there and sat down gingerly on the edge.

Harry, ignoring his throbbing headache, slowly reached over and grabbed Louis’ pinky finger, his fingers coming around to grip it. He looked up to meet Louis’ wide, confused eyes and just simply felt a surge of affection for the other boy. Harry gave Louis’ finger a gentle shake- all he knew right now was that he never wanted to let go. And he was tired of not being with Louis.

Harry, minding his head, suddenly shifted the two of them around on the bed and soon enough, Louis was now the one propped up against the pillows and Harry was stretched out along the bed with his head resting comfortably in Louis’ lap. He let out a small noise of approval when Louis began carding his fingers through Harry’s hair. 

Although this wasn’t the first time Louis was playing with his hair, this was the best it had ever felt. Harry never wanted to lose this again, even though he had been the one to inflict the falling out only days before.

Neither of them spoke for a long while. Harry felt his eyelids getting droopy and reminded himself that it wasn’t good to sleep with a concussion, but found that he didn’t care that much.

Luckily, that was the moment that Louis chose to speak to him.”Are you still very angry with me, Harry?” Louis asked softly, nervously. Harry could sense the slight tremor in the other boy’s voice, even though it wasn’t too audible. He leaned into the other boy’s hand and slightly shifted around on his lap.

Harry thought about his answer. Thought about the bet, thought about Louis, thought about what happened. 

And he found that no, he wasn’t angry anymore. That he hadn’t been angry for a while now. And he told Louis so.

“No, I’m not,” he said simply.

Harry felt Louis’ relief as tangibly as though the boy had started singing. It wafted through the air, creating something sweet between the two of them. Louis’ hands continued to methodically massage his head and run through his hair, letting his affection shine through his actions.

“Thank god. I’m really am sorry, Haz,” Louis said. Harry slowly turned his head to look at him. 

“Its okay Louis. Really. We don’t have to talk about it, alright? That’s over, it’s in the past. This is now.”

Louis nodded. Harry shifted around some more, wondering how he should say this next. He decided to just keep things plain and simple, because really, in the end, that’s what they were anyway.

“Thank you for saving me, Lou,” Harry whispered, turning his head so he could look Louis in the eye. Louis paused his ministrations for a second before picking them back up.

It seemed almost as if Louis couldn’t resist being a bit cheeky in response.

“Thats quite alright Hazza, you just now owe me sexual favors for life.”

And then Harry was laughing.

Harry was letting out deep belly-laughs at something that didn’t even merit more than a chuckle, but he couldn’t help himself. He laughed with his whole self, and soon he heard Louis join in. They both shook with the absurd laughter, not even completely sure what they were laughing at.

Harry wasn’t sure how long they laughed for. A long time, certainly, that much he knew. It felt so good, just to release all of his pent-up emotions, that he clutched at Louis, still laughing.

But then he was crying. Harry wasn’t quite sure when he began crying, but his tears of laughter suddenly turned into tears of raw, emotional pain, the kind that he couldn’t hold back even if he tried.

Harry was very aware that he was crying for the first time since his mom died, since when he’d promised himself he wouldn’t cry anymore. 

But he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t, he needed to let this out.

He cried for his mom, her death, the fact that she was ripped away from him and their family before her time. He cried for his utter abandonment, his sense of loneliness and loss suddenly overwhelming. He cried for Robin and his addiction, and the fact that he knew he would never be going back to his family. He cried for Gemma, and even his real father that he hadn’t seen in years. And most of all, Harry cried for himself, letting out all of the grief and sorrow that plagued him for years.

Harry couldn’t stop, sobs of deep anguish wracked his body as he held onto Louis for support. He could feel the other boy rubbing a soothing hand on his shoulder, running another one through his hair, whispering comforting words into his ear, kissing his forehead, cheeks, lips, anything he could reach. 

This only made him cry harder, mixing in gratitude. He was so lucky to have Louis, so blessed to have him and his support and his love.

And so Harry cried and Louis held on, whispering nothings into his ear. “It’ll be okay babe, I’ve got you. Cry it all out, I’m here.”

——

When he finished crying, Harry was exhausted. He lay limply in Louis’ arms, unsure of when the boy had even lain down with him. All Harry wanted to do was sleep, but he couldn’t of course.

So the boys stayed up talking late into the night about anything and everything and nothing at all. Anything that struck them. Harry told Louis about how Robin blamed him about his mom’s death, and Louis told him about how he was terrified that his sisters would start dating soon. 

It was a night of beginnings, a night of ends, and a night of reconciliation with each other. 

And laying there in Louis’ arms, just talking, Harry had a good feeling that everything would be okay.


	19. Epilogue

Three months later

Zayn was on a mission. He needed to get his man before the clock struck twelve.

Okay, so not really. But Zayn actually was on a mission. For the past few months, he’d been trying to tell himself that it was okay that Niall didn’t return his feelings. He’d tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt him, and that he wasn’t extremely sad about it.

However, he knew this was just a load of bullshit. For one thing, Zayn enjoyed the chase. That’s all it was for him- the chase made the person worth it. And trying to get a straight boy was the ultimate chase. So Zayn knew he needed closure with the whole ordeal, or he’d never be able to fully get over Niall.

In addition to this, he had just been under-the-surface unhappy lately. Even when he was happy and laughing, his inability to be with Niall was clouding his other thoughts, casting a shadow over his life.

Zayn knew that most of the student body (and even his friends) usually thought he was just an angst-ridden misunderstood delinquent, but in all honesty, Zayn did not enjoy being upset all the time.

He’d done almost everything to get rid of his feelings for his Irish friend. He’d hooked up with a ridiculous amount of people, hoping to feel something for one of them. He’d tried online dating when he was at a particularly low point- but no one ever had to know that. He tried staying away from Niall to see if his feelings went away (they didn’t). All that that did was hurt Niall because he thought Zayn was mad at him.

Frankly, Zayn was done with being upset all the time. 

So he decided to do something about it.

Which brings us to right now, where Zayn was on his mission. He was currently walking to Niall’s house, because Louis was using his car and he didn’t know where the hell it was. At first he was cursing the fact that he had to walk, but then figured it was probably for the best since he had to figure out what to say.

Even then, when he had time to plan, he still hadn’t thought of what to say when he got to Niall’s house. A happy surprise waited for him there- his car was at Niall’s house. Curious, that.

Zayn willed himself to calm down. It was so stupid anyway- he’d been friends with Niall for almost five months now, honestly he should have no problem talking to him about his feelings. Also he was gay now, so he should be excited about it, in fact.

(Zayn knew his logic was slightly (okay very) skewed but he was having a bit of a crisis and was feeling very stupid about the whole thing so he deserves a break.) 

Zayn walked up the front walkway to Niall’s house, thankful that his hands were steady and his knees weren’t shaking. He’d rather have broken knees than shaky, nervous knees to be quite honest. The whole thing was just so stupid. Zayn just didn’t do nervous.

But he was about to confess his true feelings to Niall, so a little nervousness was in order, no matter how unwanted it was.

When Zayn reached the door, he made sure none of his body parts were giving away how nervous he was, and rang the doorbell.

When a few minutes had passed, Harry opened the door. “Hey Zayn,” He said, sounding faintly surprised. “Whats up?”

After the whole fiasco with Robin and Harry, and Louis and Harry’s fight and the whole bit, a sort of transition had taken place. Everyone pretty much knew by now about Harry’s abuse by Robin, and it was clear that he couldn’t stay in that house anymore.

Since Harry didn’t have enough money to buy his own flat or house (and he felt too young to do so anyway), he’d been faced with a bit of a living issue. Thankfully, Niall had stepped in and offered Harry a place to stay in his own house. Harry was now using Niall’s older brother, Greg’s bedroom since he was at Uni now. 

Robin, for his part, had fled. He seemed to think that they would go straight to the police, and had vacated the premises. To be fair, the boys had considered calling the cops and complaining to Child Protective Services about Harry’s situation, but then realized that they might take Harry away. So they’d simply just taken him away from the house.

About a month later Harry had heard from Robin- the man was in a rehab center a few towns over. He was trying to fight his addiction. To Zayn’s knowledge Harry had never visited him, and he didn’t seem too beat up about that fact.

Louis knew more about the situation than Zayn did, but that was okay considering Louis was Harry’s boyfriend and Zayn was not, which was good because Zayn had feelings for Niall instead.

Which brought him back to the present, standing on Niall’s doorstep talking to Harry. And Louis evidently, who had shown up behind Harry and wrapped his arms around his waist.

Zayn watched the sweet way Harry’s features relaxed at Louis’ touch. “Hey man, I was wondering if I could talk to Niall?”

Louis raised his eyebrows in the Louis way and Zayn scowled at him, correctly reading his friend’s thoughts- Louis sensed he was about to do something drastic and was warning him against it. Zayn refrained from giving Louis the finger and mentally congratulated himself for the show of self control- he’d have to pat himself on the back for that one later.

“Yeah, sure. NIALL!” Harry yelled up the stairs. Even his yelling was slow, Zayn noted with amusement. He pointedly ignored the ‘don’t do this’ signals Louis was sending him from behind Harry. If Zayn wanted to do this then he would do it, dammit. 

Zayn’s throat dried up alarmingly the second Niall appeared at the top of the stairs, but he forced himself to not be nervous because he was Zayn Motherfucking Malik and he could do this.

As Niall came down the stairs, Zayn took note of his outfit. Tan chinos, red polo, flat brimmed hat, trainers. Eating a sandwich. Okay so clearly Niall wasn’t gonna make this easy for him.

As Niall came down the stairs yelling “What?” which was slightly muffled from the sandwich, he caught sight of Zayn and yelled out a happy greeting to his friend, stuffing the whole rest of the sandwich in his mouth as he arrived on the bottom step.

Zayn honestly wondered how in the hell it was possible to find this kid attractive with his cheeks stuffed with food to the point of almost choking, but it was apparently. Zayn felt like shaking his head at himself.

Before Zayn even really had the chance to react, Niall was pulling him out the door and out of the house, tossing a harried “See ya later!” over his shoulder as he slammed the door behind them. The last thing Zayn saw was Louis’ face, concerned and curious.

Zayn looked at Niall. “Mate, what the hell?” 

Niall grinned at Zayn. “Harry and Louis have been at it all day. Needed to get out of the house if I’m honest.”

Zayn raised his brows. “At it at it?” Niall laughed.

“What do you think?” Zayn didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Besides, he had more on his plate to worry about than Louis and Harry’s apparently raging sex life.

They walked for a little bit in silence, Niall not even questioning why Zayn was there. Zayn was glad Niall knew him well enough to recognize when silence was needed. Normally Zayn was a cheeky bastard but times like these called for more serious overtones. 

When they reached a small deserted park near Niall’s house, they turned into it and made their way over to the slides. 

They sat down side by side on the end of one of the big ones and lay back, looking up at the cloudy sky. They were completely alone. The park was hidden from passing cars by a bend in the road and there was no one at the park. Zayn doubted that many people even knew it was there, hidden as it was.

Niall didn’t say anything, which Zayn was glad for. He needed to plan out his speech. His walk to Niall’s house hadn’t done any good, so now that he was in Niall’s presence, maybe he would think more clearly.

Oh fuck, who was he kidding? He obviously wasnt going to think more clearly when he was with Niall, and besides he was Zayn Malik, Badass. He could do this.

Zayn cleared his throat. “So.”

It sounded like Niall was suppressing a giggle. Zayn fought the urge to squeal or some girly shit like that. “So,” Niall repeated.

And just like that, all at once, Zayn was just so sick of it. Sick of being afraid after he’d made the unwanted move on his friend. Sick of the fact that he’d had to hide his feelings since they’d never talked about it. Sick of being upset all the time.

And since he was Zayn Malik, The Sledgehamma, he figured he could do it because he did not want to keep living like this.

So he took a deep breathe and plunged right in, not even thinking about the words as he said them, knowing that he would never get them out if he looked at Niall or hesitated beforehand.

“Listen mate, I’ve loved being your friend,” Zayn heard himself say. “You’re great company and fun to get drunk with.”

Okay so this wasn’t going exactly how it was supposed to but well, whatever. He wasn’t Zayn Malik, Perfectionist, after all.

“Anyway,” He powered on, “Somewhere between the millions of shots and laughs and shits and giggles, I sort of started to like you? Actually well yeah I pretty much was in love with you at one point.” Oh, dear. That was going too far. But, Zayn reasoned, who really gives a fuck in the end? So he kept going.

“So then I obviously couldn’t take it one day and I know you don’t like to talk about this, but I sort of yeah. Made a move. Went in for the kill. Tried to get some itchy itchy nah nah. Kissed you. Whichever you like, you can choose.” 

Zayn still didn’t look at Niall. He concentrated on the sky above him.

“But you didn’t like it, man. And that sucked, obviously. You know that’s the reason I got into that fight with Louis? Well anyway, the thing is, I’ve tried to get over you but like, I don’t think I have. And I’m not sure what to do about that, you know.”

And that was where Zayn ran out of steam. He congratulated himself on his speech and also the fact that he hadn’t puked mid-execution. Then his stomach doused itself in ice water when he realized he had to wait for Niall’s answer.

Which surprisingly enough, arrived quickly.

“So give it another try,” Came the Irish-accent words.

“Give what another try?”

Niall chuckled. “You and me.”

Zayn almost choked on his own spit before he reminded his bodily functions that no, that was not a cool move. “What do you mean? You hated it last time!”

Niall grinned, and Zayn turned to face him for the first time. “Mate, I was surprised. Shocked. What would you do if Liam tried to make out with you in the movie theater?”

Zayn couldn’t suppress a shudder. He loved Liam, the boy was one of his favorite people in the world. He was Zayn’s brother, for all the right reasons. But Zayn just wasn’t into incest, to be honest.

“Point taken. But I mean, why would you want to try it again?”

Niall shrugged. “Well, what if I was curious? I mean, who knows? We get on really well and besides, who better to try it out with?” He said, grinning. “Because I mean, you’re… Yeah..” he trailed off, gesturing vaguely towards Zayn’s face.

Zayn felt ridiculously pleased at having his face be referred to as ‘…yeah.” It was kind of absurd, actually.

Niall grinned at the look on Zayn’s face. Zayn couldn’t see himself because he forgot his pocket mirror at home, but he guessed that he was looking pretty stupid right now, with the way his jaw felt like it was down at his knees and his eyes were probably bugging out, which was so lovely of course.

He gave himself a mental slap and reminded himself not to be Zayn Malik, Whipped Bitch.

“Alright mate,” Zayn said when he regained the talent of speech again. “If you’re sure? Like I don’t want to make it weird or anything now.”

Niall let out a loud laugh. “Zayn, it’s already weird as hell right now. We might as well try it, yeah? Just to know.”

Zayn nodded. “Yeah. Just to know.”

Niall smiled at him and suddenly, his face was closer. Zayn swallowed hard. He was preparing to give himself a pep talk when he realized that this was something that he shouldn’t over-think. Don’t think just do.

So Zayn threw caution to the wind and went for it. His heart jumped violently when his lips touched Niall’s and he gasped a little, trying to immediately deepen the kiss.

As they got more and more into it, Niall’s hands looped casually around Zayn’s neck and Zayn’s hands found their way into the Irish boy’s hair. Zayn opened his mouth and traced his tongue over Niall’s lips, seeking entrance. Niall obliged immediately, and their tongues met, battling for dominance. 

In the end, Zayn won and he set on exploring Niall’s mouth, tracing over his tongue and sliding against it sensually.

However, as he began to really taste Niall, he found that he could also taste the sandwich the boy had been eating minutes before.

For some reason, this fact alone caused something inside Zayn to snap, and he couldn’t help himself- he broke away from the kiss, letting out a huge uncontrollable bout of laughter.

It wasn’t long until Niall joined in, and both laughed uproariously for who knows how long. They held onto each other and just laughed. It was delightfully random, sitting there in that abandoned park.

Niall, surprisingly gained control of himself first. “Was that weird fer you as well then?” he asked, breaking out into fits of giggles again. Zayn attempted to speak through his laughter.

“Mate, that was so weird.”

“Lets not do that again right now.”

“Right now?” Zayn asked, a smile still lingering on his face. Niall smiled back at him.

“Who’s to say we won’t like it tomorrow?” 

Zayn laughed again. He couldn’t help it. “You’re right, man. Let’s give it another go tomorrow.”

Niall clapped him on the shoulder, standing up. “Alright mate, let’s get back. I’m almost afraid of what Harry and Louis could possibly be doing.” A stricken look crossed his face suddenly. “Or, where they might be doing it.”

Zayn got up too and threw an arm around his Irish friend. His feelings were all over the place, but he decided to just let it go. Things would play out, and that was good enough for him.

——

When they got back to Niall’s house, thankfully they discovered Harry and Louis both had all their clothes on, which was good. Although it depended on how one looked at it, since they seemed to have unknowingly swapped some clothes from before Zayn and Niall left.

When Zayn walked into the kitchen, Niall in tow, he came across Harry begging Louis to take him to see the new horror movie that had just came out, called The Woods. Louis was adamantly saying no, but Harry wasn’t giving up.

Zayn watched with amusement as Harry suddenly dropped the trump card.

“Hey Louis,” said the curly headed minion, “Do you remember that one time, where you made a bet about me and I found out and got beat up and we didn’t speak for days?”

Louis never even had a chance.

“Ohmygod Harry I’m so sorry please I’ll do anything just please forgive me oh lord Harry!”

Niall and Harry both burst out laughing at Louis’ antics, but Zayn just watched the sight with a faint smile on his lips. He knew that Louis’ antics weren’t actually antics- he literally felt terrible whenever Harry brought up the bet and the other horrible things that had happened. 

All in all, in that moment with his friends, Zayn felt quite proud of himself. Because of the bet, Harry and Louis had gotten together, Zayn had realized his own sexuality (as had Louis), Zayn had met Niall, and they’d formed a wonderful friendship out of it, and maybe even more.

And the bet had been Zayn’s idea after all, so he deserved all the credit, really. He was Zayn Malik, Bet Extraordinaire. And that’s the truth.


	20. Not My Story!!!!!

This is not my story I copied it up here to be able to download it!!!!!! Go here [TUMBLR MATER POST ](http://0pen-at-the-close.tumblr.com/post/24013464482/the-bet-masterpost) for the actual post!! It's on tumblr!! I put it on here because It was taken off of watt pad!!


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